By Michael J. West | Published December 2025
So much is happening on I LOVE LIFE even when I’m hurting that trying to figure out where to start leads to a serious paradox of choice. Detroit tenor man Dave McMurray has a lot to say, and, on his fourth album for Blue Note, a lot of ways to say it. Afrobeat (“The Jungaleers”), downtempo (“7 Wishes 4 G”), sexy slow jams (“We Got By”) and Caribbean grooves (“Find Your Peace (4 Tani)”) all have a place in this album’s wide lens. None of it sounds forced; all of it sounds fantastic.
There are many constants here as well. Accessible melody suffuses every corner of the album, even on pieces like “The Jungaleers” where the beat’s the thing. Add to that the tracks’ brevity (the two longest don’t quite break seven minutes), reservoirs of soul that won’t quit (most affectingly on the title track) and a passionate and relatable lead voice in McMurray’s tenor — more in common with Sonny Rollins and fellow Detroiter Joe Henderson than with his Oakland-born near namesake — and you’ve got something very close to a pop album. Or at least a populist jazz album, the kind Blue Note made in its Lion-Wolff heyday.
That, surely, was part of the intention. McMurray’s music also resonates with allusions to the overall jazz legacy (the opening sax-and-text “This Life” echoes Chalres Mingus’ “Scenes From The City” and Detroit’s specific legacy, from Henderson to Motown to techno. Its most profound throughline is the tight-yet-sprawling interface McMurray shares with his Motor City colleagues: guitarist Wayne Gerard, keyboardists Luis Resto and Maurice O’Neal, bassist Ibrahim Jones, drummer Jeff Canady, percussionist Mahindi Masai and vocalist Herschel Boon. Their magical convergence on the concluding “The Wheel” is one of the year’s final sublime musical moments.
