| Shakill's Warrior | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | David Murray |
| Cover: | Shakill's Warrior.jpg |
| Released: | 1991 |
| Recorded: | March 1–2, 1991 |
| Studio: | Sound On Sound, New York City |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Length: | 72:49 |
| Label: | DIW/Columbia (DIW 850) |
| Producer: | Kazunori Sugiyama |
| Chronology: | David Murray |
| Prev Title: | Remembrances |
| Prev Year: | 1990 |
| Next Title: | David Murray Big Band |
| Next Year: | 1991 |
Shakill's Warrior is an album by David Murray released on the DIW/Columbia label in 1991. It features eight quartet performances by Murray with Stanley Franks, Don Pullen, and Andrew Cyrille.[1]
Reviewing for Playboy in April 1992, Robert Christgau hailed Murray as "the most generous saxophone virtuoso since Sonny Rollins" and Shakill's Warrior "the funkiest record he's ever made", as well as "one of the most evocative". He highlighted the playing of Pullen, saying he and Murray "dig deep into the most declasse kind of organ jazz", and went on to write:
Christgau later ranked Shakill's Warrior as the second best album of 1992 in his year-end "Dean's List" for The Village Voices Pazz & Jop critics poll.[2] In (2000), he assigned the album an A-plus grade,[3] although he later said in 2020, after relistening: "in what may have been the first time in 25 years, one thing became clear quick: not an A plus."[4]
In another retrospective appraisal, AllMusic's Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars, stating: "The music, with the exception of some typical Murray outbursts into the extreme upper register, is generally respectful and soulful, one of Murray's mellower efforts.".[5]