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Joe Morris
Joe Morris was born in New Haven, Connecticut on September 13, 1955. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane's OM which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended a student run alternative High School called The Unschool in downtown New Haven next to the campus of Yale University. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent most of his time day and night playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17. Drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the '70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.
Between 1975 and 1978 he was active on the Boston creative music scene as a soloist as well as in various groups from duos to large ensembles. He composed music for his first trio in 1977. In 1980 he traveled to Europe where he performed in Belgium and Holland. When he returned to Boston he helped to organize the Boston Improvisers Group (BIG) with other musicians. Over the next few years through various configurations BIG produced two festivals and many concerts. In 1981 he formed his own record company, Riti, and recorded his first Lp Wraparound with a trio featuring Sebastian Steinberg on bass and Laurence Cook on drums. Riti records released four more LPs and CDs before 1991. Also in 1981 he began what would be a six year collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Lowell Davidson, performing with him in a trio and a duo. During the next few years in Boston he performed in groups which featured among others; Billy Bang, Andrew Cyrille, Peter Kowald, Joe McPhee, Malcolm Goldstein, Samm Bennett, Lawrence "Butch" Morris and Thurman Barker. Between 1987 and 1989 he lived in New York City where he performed at the Shuttle Theater, Club Chandelier, Visiones, Inroads, Greenwich House, etc. as well as performing with his trio at the first festival Tea and Comprovisation held at the Knitting Factory.
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Joëlle Léandre: Lifetime Rebel
by Mark Corroto
Joëlle Léandre is the definition of a force of nature. She is unstoppable, unforgettable, and full of boundless energy. It is the nature of her force that recordings like Lifetime Rebel attempt to capture. These four CDs--plus an interview and solo performance DVD--capture a moment, but just a moment of her inexhaustible spirit, before she moves on. Recorded in 2023, Léandre was honored with a lifetime achievement award during New York's Vision Festival. The performances captured are by diverse and ...
Continue ReadingIvo Perelman: Seven Skies Orchestra
by Mike Jurkovic
In another reality, where the love one makes is what gets the headlines, the big money, the streaming specials, ceaselessly inquisitive saxophonist and downtown legend Ivo Perelman might just top the list of good guys. The guy who pushes for the better mind, the better heart, and confesses it all to tape or lacquer or binary code; chronicling one man's pursuit of the day. while hopefully inspiring others to cut the course the same. Even before the most ...
Continue ReadingIvo Perelman: Molten Gold
by Hrayr Attarian
Saxophonist Ivo Perelman is a restless innovator, and his recorded output is as inventive as it is prolific. On the exhilarating Molten Gold he explores a new sonic texture by playing with the equally idiosyncratic trombonist Ray Anderson. In addition to Anderson, the quartet includes another Chicago native, drummer Reggie Nicholson who developed his unique sound with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Frequent Perelman collaborator, guitarist Joe Morris, here playing double bass, completes the ensemble. The ...
Continue ReadingIvo Perelman: Molten Gold
by Mike Jurkovic
A tactile, umbilical cord tension binds you to the slithery movements advanced on Molten Gold, the umpteenth in a slew of hard-core free jazz releases, one of them being the twelve disc set Reed Rapture In Brooklyn (Mahakala, 2022), from the generative mind and horn of saxophonist Ivo Perelman. Recorded at ParkWest Studio by Jim Clouse, Perelman, in full form and fever, assembles fellow rogues trombonist Ray Anderson, bassist Joe Morris and drummer Reggie Nicholson for over eighty minutes of ...
Continue ReadingIvo Perelman / Ray Anderson / Joe Morris / Reggie Nicholson: Molten Gold
by Chris May
Lovingly described by one critic as “a leather-lunged monster," reviews of saxophonist Ivo Perelman's albums typically attract words such as honking, squawking, squealing and apocalyptic. Perelman is not interested in the current vogue for creating safe spaces. He is not the sort of free-improv player one would, in the normal course of things, recommend to AAJers wanting to dip a neophyte toe in the genre. But Molten Gold is recommended. And not just to newbies, but to ...
Continue ReadingFlow Trio with Joe McPhee: Winter Garden
by Mark Corroto
The thing about free jazz is that it is very much like abstract expressionist painting. Many an inexperienced museum goer will spot a Jackson Pollock and say to herself, “I coulda done that." Actually, you couldn't. Same thing with free jazz. From a distance, it's all hubbub and din, but try your hand at it, and you're just creating babel. In the hands of masters like the Flow Trio and their guest Joe McPhee, that cacophony becomes a beautiful thing, ...
Continue ReadingPaul Dunmall - Matthew Shipp - Joe Morris - Gerald Cleaver: The Bright Awakening
by John Sharpe
British saxophonist Paul Dunmall reaffirms the transcendent power of free jazz with a muscular quartet convened for his triumphant appearance at the 2012 Vision Festival, for which he invited pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist Joe Morris and drummer Gerald Cleaver to join him. The pianist and reedman were well acquainted, having hooked up during a Shipp residency at London's Cafe Oto in 2010, with the group captured for posterity on Live In London (FMR, 2017). While Dunmall had not previously played ...
Continue ReadingElmo Hope and Joe Morris
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Bebop's fast tempo and complex rhythms were embraced by modern-jazz fans when the jazz style emerged in the mid-1940s. But bop also provided jump blues with an opening. Bebop was spectacular and electrifying, but it wasn't for dancing. It was mostly for sitting and listening. As a result, the big-beat, horn-driven dance music made major inroads in Black neighborhoods and in the record market. By 1949, R&B was so popular that Billboard started an official R&B chart. Hundreds of R&B ...
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Red Piano Records To Release "Cosmopolitan Greetings" From Frank Carlberg/Joe Morris/Pascal Niggenkemper/Luther Gray
Source:
Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity
Available October 16, 2015 Brooklyn-based Red Piano Records is proud to announce the release of Cosmopolitan Greetings, a collective effort by four veterans of the improvised music scene. This album marks the recorded debut of this quartet, with a line up featuring guitar legend Joe Morris, pianist/composer Frank Carlberg, bass wizard Pascal Niggenkemper and unsung drum master Luther Gray, in a program of three Carlberg compositions, and three collective improvisations. In the liner notes Carlberg describes the genesis of Cosmopolitan ...
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Guitarist Joe Morris Joins Forces With Keyboardist Jamie Saft & Drummer Mike Pride On Microtonal Blues Project Raoul
Source:
hubtone PR
The sound of Joe Morris’ electric guitar, with distortion pedal set on stun and wah-wah pedal fully engaged, colliding with Jamie Saft’s droning, microtonal organ and Mike Pride’s thunderous free drumming approach to the kit creates a mind-numbing maelstrom on The Spanish Donkey's RAOUL, the improvising trio’s debut on RareNoiseRecords. A follow-up to XYX, their 2011 album, which was released on Northern Spy Records. The album consists of three throbbing tracks — the brutal 32-minute title track ‘Raoul, the 22-minute ...
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Avant-Garde Icon Wadada Leo Smith Joins Forces With Jamie Saft, Joe Morris, Balazs Pandi On Startling RareNoise Release Red Hill
Source:
hubtone PR
There’s a sense of mystery, majesty and daring surrounding this remarkably deep studio session, the first of its kind for the adventurous renegade label RareNoiseRecords. Each piece resounds with such compelling, conversational, in-the-moment playing that it sets a new standard in collective improvisation. “I believe it raises the bar for what improvised music can achieve on record,” says pianist Jamie Saft of Red Hill, the group’s mesmerizing debut on the RareNoise label.Fueled by the urgent high note blasts and expressive ...
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Joe Morris and Agusta- Ferna Ndez - Ambrosia (Riti Records, 2011) ****
Source:
Free Jazz by Stef Gijssels
By Paul Acquaro This guitar and piano duo album from Joe Morris and Agustí Fernández is an outing by like minded improvisors, happily extending the definition of melody and the physical limitations of their respective instruments. Between rich acoustic tones they scratch and pluck in unintended places, creating rhythm and melody in adventurous ways. The series of improvisations begin with “Ambrosia 1," which finds Fernández delivering fleeting phrases on the keys while Morris, reacting, provides counter argument via his fretboard. ...
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Joe Morris - Sensor (Nobusiness, 2010)
Source:
Music and More by Tim Niland
Joe Morris is a veteran musician, playing and teaching in New England and New York. Primarily known a guitarist, he added bass to his arsenal about a decade ago, and has built a remarkably original and personal conception of the instrument. This solo album was recorded in 2010 and released as a limited edition vinyl record. “Sensor" is one long meta-track, broken into seven sections, featuring Morris on both plucked and bowed bass. “Sensor 1" opens the album with him ...
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Jazz Guitarist Joe Morris Does It His Way
Source:
All About Jazz @ Spinner
By Tad Hendrickson A jazz artist who balances a sharp ear for melody with an intellect inspired by improvisation's outer reaches, Joe Morris is part of a community of musicians who play what has been called the downtown jazz, avant-garde, free jazz or even just free music scenes. Since he began performing on guitar in 1975, he's carved out a reputation for himself that is up there with innovative guitarists including Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne and Marc Ribot. Always in ...
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The Jazz Session #96: Joe Morris
Source:
Michael Ricci
Guitarist Joe Morris has spent three decades finding ways to contribute to the language of the guitar and to the literature of improvised music. Hes managed to stay true to himself and his sound during that entire time, even as hes added the bass to his repertoire. On Today On Earth (AUM Fidelity, 2009), Morris continues to explore the place of the guitar in the world of free improvisation. In this interview, Morris talks about his early decision to play ...
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Bjork in Full-Throated Plumage, Jazz in a Calmer Key
Source:
Michael Ricci
There has been no shortage of live Bjork documentation in recent seasons. So lets file Voltaic, released by Nonesuch a couple of weeks ago, under the category of Things We Didnt Think We Needed.
Available in five configurations, from a single CD to a multiple CD-DVD-LP set, it chronicles a typical frenzy of activity following the release of Bjorks 2007 album, Volta. The principal CD, recorded in one pass at a studio in London, features live versions of the songs ...
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Firehouse 12 to Present the Joe Morris Quartet This Friday 4/11
Source:
Improvised Communications
On Friday, April 11th, New Haven's Firehouse 12 will welcome back acclaimed guitarist/composer and New Haven native Joe Morris to its Spring Jazz Series for a two-set performance with his quartet. This will be be Morris' sixth appearance at Firehouse 12 and his second as a leader. His quartet, which can be heard on the 2006 release, Beautiful Existence (Clean Feed), features saxophonist Jim Hobbs, bassist Timo Shanko and drummer Matt Rousseau.
“With hauntingly atmospheric modal grooves, tender, reflective ballads ...
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Joe Morris
Instrument: Bass, acoustic
Born: September 13, 1955
