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Lynda Murray Saxophone image JPG
Sax.JPG
Sax.JPG

Lynda met jazz and world music photographer Jak Kilby in 1977 in North London.   They shared a house with an amazing array of musicians and creatives that included South African drummer Louis Moholo.  This also meant she met most of the members of Chris McGregor's Brother Hood of Breath and stayed with Chris and his family in Lot-et-Garonne in Southern France.  Dudu Pukwana (alto sax) and his wife Barbara were also a frequent visitors to the house and she went to many of Zilla's gigs.  Neville Murray Lynda's brother is also a musician (latin percussion) who toured with Jah Wobble's (original bassist with Public Image Ltd) Invaders Of The Heart and the very popular North London latin band The Holloway All Stars 

She married Jak Kilby in 1980 and they had two children, Naomi Kilby (opera singer and artistic director of Opera Alegria) and Zak Kilby (photographic illustrator).

She became immersed in the London jazz scene by accompanying Jak to all the jazz gigs that he photographed in the late 70’s and 80’s, often with her guest ticket sitting with jazz critics such as John Fordham and met the amazing jazz photographer Val Wilmer and jazz promoter John Cummings.  Lynda switched from studying classical piano at Trent Park  Music college to saxophone and gradually started to play jazz. 

Lynda spent many years as a classroom music teacher (11-18yrs) and raised two children on her own after her divorce, these activites left little time to progress with her true love, playing the sax and jazz but perseverence, dedication and time are gradually bringing some rewards.

Lynda is mainly self-taught on the sax but along the way has had some coaching on the saxophone and in jazz harmony/composition with an array of great exponents of the genre. Jimmy Hastings, Gilad Atzmon, Pete Wareham, Mark Bassey, Alan Barnes and Tony Kofi. 

She joined John Steven’s Search and Reflect Community Music project in 1984 first as a trainee workshop leader then was kept on as a workshop leader until she left in 1987 due to moving to the South Coast.

Since living in East Sussex Lynda has had the opportunity to work with some great musicians and has developed her music writing skills.  She has a collection of material that has not been released on CD yet and there are live recordings on YouTube of two of her compositions Serenade and Heron.

Lynda set up two award winning jazz clubs in Hastings, The Street Jazz, a free event in a bar called The Street and secondly Hastings Jazz club.  She managed Hastings Jazz Club for 3 years and ran a two-day jazz festival that included, Julian Joseph,

Tony Kofi, the late Harry Becket, Liam Noble, Juliet Kelly, Trevor Watts and Veryan Western.  The jazz club also played host to such notable musicians as Alan Barnes, Gilad Atzmon, Annie Whitehead, Ian Shaw, Winston Clifford, Steve Lodder and Brass Jaw with the amazing Paul Towndrow.  When the recession hit in 2008 the club folded due to lack of attendence and loss of their venue.

Lynda is the second eldest child of 5 siblings born to immigrant parents

Her father came to the England from Guyana in 1944 with the Royal Air Force to help with the war effort.  After the war he was granted British citizenship to stay in the UK.

He met Lynda’s Irish mother at Tottenham Court Road Palais in 1945 they married in 1946 and it was a partnership that survived for more that fifty years.  Her father Robert Murray had his book “Lest We Forget” published in 1996.  It is a collection of aural histories from West Indian ex-servicemen who came to England to help with the war effort and then decided to settle in Britain after World War II.  This book is credited in Angel Levy’s prize winning novel ‘Small Island’,  (winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year and Orange Prize for fiction)   ‘Lest We Forget” is available to buy on Amazon.

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