Joe Morris, Ben Stapp & Dan O'Brien - Amphibious Not By Nature (January 29, 2022 Phonoemulsion Records)

1. it can be done

2. sink or swim

3. through tests and trials

4. there is much work yet to be done

5. who am i?

Joe Morris - guitar

Ben Stapp - tuba

Dan O'Brien - clarinet, alto, tenor, baritone saxophones

Recorded July 2021 at Glacial Erratic Studios, Guilford, CT

Engineered by Joe Morris

Mixed and mastered by Dan O'Brien

Layout and design by Dan O'Brien

Copyright 2022 Phonoemulsion Records, Glacial Erratic and Uqbar Music

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Joe Morris / Damon Smith - Gusts Against Particles (May 1, 2021 Open Systems Records)

This LP is the first release for Open Systems and is a limited, hand numbered edition of 200 copies. The digital version is unlimited.

Duets are conversations, pure and simple. They can be long threads, emphatic, full of query and answer, or emotion and subtlety. At best, they have all the hallmarks and inside commentary of an old relationship, but even first-time meetings can feel like the participants have known one another for ages. You might know that feeling, too: someone you’ve been aware of and finally get to spend time with, over the minutes or hours that follow a gentle easing-in becomes a gush of ideas and rejoinders. Joe Morris (b. 1955, New Haven, CT) and Damon Smith (b. 1972, Spokane, WA) have traveled in similar improvised music circles for decades, though Gusts Against Particles is their first duo and first proper album together.

The two met in 2006 under the guise of sessions for Healing Force, a super-group CD put together by guitarist Henry Kaiser to explore the late music of Albert Ayler. At that time Smith was living in the Bay Area and cutting his teeth in its free music scene while Morris was based out East, teaching at the New England Conservatory and leading a number of harmonically and rhythmically game-changing small ensembles.

Flash forward 13 years and Smith was living and working in Boston, performing with artists like pianists Pandelis Karayorgis and Eric Zinman, drummers Ra Kalam Bob Moses and Curt Newton, trombonist Jeb Bishop, and cornetist Stephen Haynes. Just prior to the bassist’s 2019 relocation to St. Louis, a few concerts were set up with Morris alongside this studio recording. Of Morris, Smith says “I got into his work pretty soon after getting into the music. I love that he knows free jazz as well as the European traditions.

He is well versed in the harmonic language of Jimmy Lyons, which is foundational for me since I came up as [alto saxophonist] Marco Eneidi's understudy. Playing with him is more like playing with a horn player than a guitarist. It is unlike playing with [Sandy] Ewen or Kaiser. The main thing about playing with him is I am able to think and play faster and more effortlessly than on my own.”

Morris has also worked frequently as a contrabassist, though the guitar is his primary and longest-lasting mode of expression. He’s performed and recorded in duo with other legendary bassists in free music, people like William Parker, Barre Phillips, and Christian Weber, not to mention in deep dialogues with other modern instrumental travelers (eg. reedist Anthony Braxton, saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpeter Nate Wooley, pianist Matthew Shipp, and guitarist Mary Halvorson). So, there is a lot of history to reckon with, as well as a lot of instantaneous creation.

As Morris thinks back to meeting Smith and subsequent experience, he notes that “[Damon’s] playing expresses the pulse much more now on the bass than he did back then… I never generalize in any way about the particulars of anyone I play with. I listen for very specific things no matter who I play with, and I respond and interact in very specific ways depending on what I hear from them and what they do in response to me.”

In terms of the dialogic meat, Morris and Smith are both masters of an expanded but very distinct palette, the guitarist using muting objects, pedals, and picking motions that create a hive of sounds from scrabbled density to ghostly drabs hanging between nodes of a western scale. Smith is graceful and also knows how to manhandle the bass, interweaving additional bows, brushes, woody palm-swabs and plastic chain as well as making his presence known through a trusty, surefooted pizzicato walk. The array of string sounds on these pieces is dazzling and often dense, and it’s sometimes hard to believe this music comes from two people composing spontaneously. Morris puts it this way: “the inspiration is in life and the decades of trying to grow as an artist.

The music is made with skill and quick decision making in the moment, using the knowledge I have about improvising. That includes close listening and doing the best I can to decipher the other musicians’ contributions.” Now, the onus is on you, the listener, to enter the conversation and the experience. CLIFFORD ALLEN

1. Waves of Extension

2. Equalization Staggering

3. Momentum Redoubling

4. Double of Any

5. Multiple Presences

Joe Morris, Guitar

Damon Smith, Double Bass

Recorded by Joe Morris, June 10, 2019

Mixed and Mastered by Weasel Walter

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Wadada Leo Smith / Jamie Saft / Joe Morris / Balazs Pandi - Red Hill (March 2021 Catalytic Sound)

Fueled by the urgent high note blasts and expressive muted trumpet work of avant garde icon Wadada Leo Smith and underscored by and uncanny group-think of RareNoise stalwarts Jamie Saft (Metallic Taste of Blood, Slobber Pup, Plymouth, The New Standard) on keyboards, Joe Morris (Plymouth, Slobber Pup, One) on upright bass and Balazs Pandi (Obake, Metallic Taste of Blood, Slobber Pup, One) on drums, Red Hill is a kind of clarion call for the new avant garde. A dynamic, highly intuitive offering, Red Hill is full of tensions and releases and characterized by dramatic use of space juxtaposed with turbulent crescendos by the provocative collective. That this music really breathes and flows organic is due in no small part to the incredibly sensitive, remarkably flexible playing of Hungarian drummer Balazs, who covers a very wide spectrum on this recording. Pandi's sensitive, highly interactive brushwork and coloristic cymbals underscore Smith's lyrical muted trumpet playing on the sparse opener, Gneiss. And yet, when that piece builds to a turbulent crescendo near the end, the drummer is right there to fuel the frantic proceedings. With mallets, Pandi engages in a conversational duet with Smith at the outset to Janus Face, a piece that evolves from slow, open rubato statements to dense explosions of tumultuous free jazz sparked by Saft's Cecil-esque attack on the piano.

Saft switches to Fender Rhodes electric piano to attain another color on Agpaitic, a conversational romp that features some aggressive bowing on the bass by Morris. And Pandi supplies the rolling free pulse beneath Morris' trance-like bass ostinato and Smith's edgy trumpet excursions on Tragic Wisdom, which also has intrepid improvisor Saft plucking strings inside his piano. Silence is the watchword on Debts of Honor, a thoughtful improvisation which evolves gradually over the course of nine minutes from zen-like tranquility to intense crescendo paced by Pandi's relentless drumming and Saft's spiky piano comping and is highlighted by some of Smith's most powerful blowing of the session. The trumpeter begins the closing number, Arfvedsonite, with a high-note blast before Morris enters with some insistent arco work to create an edgy texture. Pandi's rolling pulse with mallets and Morris' resounding bass tones quickly establish a solid launching pad for Wadada's stratospheric improvisations on trumpet, Bringing this spell-binding collection to a ferocious conclusion.

Gneiss

Janus Face

Agpaitic

Tragic Wisdom

Debts of Honor

Arfvedsonite

Wadada Leo Smith : Trumpet

Jamie Saft : Piano, Fender Rhodes

Joe Morris : Upright Bass

Balazs Pandi : Drums

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Flow Trio with Joe McPhee - Winter Garden (March 26, 2021 ESP Disk')

It is an interesting question how old “free jazz” is. At some point, even a theme and a plan became optional. In the ESP-Disk’ catalog, “Taneous” on the Giuseppi Logan Quartet’s eponymous album sounds like this approach of complete freedom starting from scratch; it was recorded on November 11, 1964. Joe McPhee, in 1967, appeared on Clifford Thornton’s album Freedom and Unity, so his recording career covers 53 of those 56 years, 95% of the approach’s history. Each succeeding decade found another player on this album joining the confraternity: Downs in 1976, Morris in 1983, and Belogenis in 1993. By that method of counting, there are 159 years of collective experience being heard on this album.

Joe McPhee: tenor saxophone

Louie Belogenis: tenor and soprano saxophones

Joe Morris: bass

Charles Downs: drums

All compositions by McPhee, Belogenis, Morris, and Downs.

Recorded on January 11, 2020 by Jim Clouse at Park West Studios, Brooklyn NY

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Tyshawn Sorey - Pillars (FIREHOUSE 12 RECORDS 2018)

Renowned far and wide not only as a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist but as a composer-improviser of visionary gifts, Tyshawn Sorey presents his most ambitious recorded project to date with Pillars, a three-CD/two-LP epic that deals in ritual, drone and volatile atmosphere. Pillars is a triptych of seamless composition and improvisation, performed by a top-flight electro-acoustic octet featuring Sorey (conductor, drum set, percussion, trombone, dungchen) alongside Stephen Haynes (trumpet, flugelhorn, cornet, alto horn, small percussion), Ben Gerstein (trombone, melodica), Todd Neufeld (electric and acoustic guitars), Joe Morris (electric guitar, double-bass), Carl Testa (double-bass, electronics), Mark Helias (double-bass) and Zach Rowden (double-bass).

The multivalent sound world of Pillars is beyond category, as inspired by Tibetan ceremonial music as by the extended avant-jazz rituals of Roscoe Mitchell; the African-American experimentalism of Bill Dixon, Butch Morris and Anthony Braxton have also been a keen influence on Sorey, as have been the disparate, trans-Atlantic modernisms of Morton Feldman and Karlheinz Stockhausen. As The New Yorker recently noted, Sorey is “among the most formidable denizens of the in-between zone… An extraordinary talent who can see across the entire musical landscape.” Pillars will be released in full-length triple-CD and digital download versions, as well as in a different, re-edited edition for vinyl double-LP (titled Pillars IV).

Stephen Haynes: trumpet, flugelhorn, cornet, alto horn, small percussion

Ben Gerstein: trombone, melodica

Todd Neufeld: electric and acoustic guitar

Joe Morris: electric guitar, double bass

Carl Testa: double bass, electronics

Mark Helias: double bass

Zach Rowden: double bass

Tyshawn Sorey: conductor, drum set, dungchen, percussion, trombone

1. Pillars I 01:17:15

2. Pillars II 01:15:02

3. Pillars III 01:18:02

Recorded by Greg DiCrosta on July 30 and 31, 2017

Edited, Mixed & Mastered by Nick Lloyd

Graphic Design by Megan Craig

Produced by Tyshawn Sorey

Co-produced by Nick Lloyd

Mary Halvorson & Joe Morris - Traversing Orbits (ROGUEART 2018)

“Two masterful artists who happen to play guitar – their marks on the music far transcend their instruments.”

All recordings, especially those of improvised music, try to freeze the sound of a present moment, but invariably melt into the past and the future, real and imagined. Listening to this album, I can’t help but think of the classic meeting of Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins, where two titans of the same instrument across different generations displayed mutual love and respect through stylistic contrast and playful jousting. Or I create a fiction, of Django Reinhardt and Freddie Green crossing paths in some distant hotel, staying up late one night and pushing each other to new ideas. (I don’t make that allusion lightly – for the abundance of virtuosic extended technique, don’t miss the profound swing of the articulated lines and the chunky chords.) Taylor Ho Bynum, excerpt from the liner notes

Joe Morris: guitar

Mary Halvorson: guitar

Brain Draft (2:33)

Shivering Sunshine (3:50)

Traces of Three (4:11)

Silence Invasion (3:42)

Semaphore (11:44)

Full of Somehow (9:02)

Constant Between (7:29)

In Other Terms (6:14)

Over the Line (5:39)

All compositions by Joe Morris (RITI, ASCAP) and Mary Halvorson (Mary Halvorson, BMI)

Recorded by Aaron Nevezie on April 9th 2018 at The Bunker Studios, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Mixing: Aaron Nevezie

Mastering: Greg DiCrosta, Firehouse 12 Studios, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Liner notes: Taylor Ho Bynum

Photographs: Aaron Nevezie

Cover design: Max Schoendorff

Cover realization: David Bourguignon

Executive producer: Michel Dorbon

Fay Victor's SoundNoiseFunk - Wet Robots (ESP-Disk' July 17, 2018)

This is Fay Victor's first album as a leader released on an American label other than her own Greene Street Music, but she is already a star on the New York avant-jazz scene. 

from Bradley Bambarger's liner notes: 

"Few vocalists have the sheer boldness – the outright fearlessness – of Fay Victor as an improviser. The New York native has long been a creative force on the avant-jazz scene, as a singer, bandleader, composer, arranger, and teacher. She has worked on both sides of the Atlantic with the likes of Misha Mengelberg, Roswell Rudd, and Anthony Braxton, along with recording several distinctive albums as a leader. Reviewing her recent disc Absinthe & Vermouth, NPR declared evocatively that Fay’s original songs sound “as if Joni Mitchell wrote lyrics for a lost Betty Carter prog-rock album – and it totally works.” Fay has also recorded edgy blues in a duo with guitarist Anders Nilsson, and she is an inspired re-animator of vintage instrumentals as vocal material, in the spirit of Carmen McRae in Monk; to this end, Fay has performed with her In Praise of Ornette group and with her house-rocking Herbie Nichols Sung band. 

"Now we have on record Fay’s SoundNoiseFUNK quartet, featuring Joe Morris, Sam Newsome, and Reggie Nicholson – each an exceptional maker of music in the moment. Although Fay enjoyed a rapport with each of these players in various combinations, this foursome had never played together as a unit before the single summer day last year when Wet Robots was captured in a Brooklyn studio. If jazz is the sound of surprise, this album startles – a sonic funhouse of left turns. The band floats in its own space, untethered by a bass. Morris’s guitar moves like a snake. Newhouse keens, taps, sighs on the straight horn. Nicholson makes his percussion set-up a skittering, rattling thing. Then there is Fay – her voice primal and wild, as attuned to unfettered expression as Albert Ayler’s tenor." 

1. Funky Dunk

2. A Witness in the Wilderness

3. Information Highway

4. Police Lights and Sirens

5. Squeeze Bottle

6. The Blues Are Always Free

7. Creative Folks!

8. Textured Pines

9. Whistling on a Sketeboard

10. I Sing

11. The Ha-Ha's

12. Holding Back the Scream

Fay Victor, vocals, lyrics

Sam Newsome, soprano saxophone

Joe Morris, electric guitar

Reggie Nicholson, drums

Drawings by Diana Kinscher / Design & layout by Jonathan Granola / Liner Notes by Bradley Bambarger 

Produced by Steve Holtje / Recorded at Park West Studios on August 4, 2017 by Jim Clouse

Rempis / Morris / Reid / Baker - Nettles (2016) AEROPHONIC RECORDS

present

Rempis / Morris / Reid / Baker - Nettles (2016)

Released May 3, 2016 

In the summer of 2013, guitarist Joe Morris decided to thoroughly acquaint himself with the vibrant Chicago creative music scene. Although he’d worked with plenty of Chicago musicians over the years, including regular collaborations with percussionist Hamid Drake and reedist Ken Vandermark, it had been many years since Morris had spent any significant time in the city. So he undertook a series of concerts, organized by Vandermark, which placed him in a number of different contexts alongside many of his Chicago-based counterparts, including this string-heavy date at Elastic Arts. 

From the start, this ad-hoc quartet took advantage of an unusual instrumentation to produce some austere and starkly beautiful music. Each member contributes quickly interweaving lines that occasionally burst to the fore, but tend more often to wrap themselves into one other, hiding in plain sight amongst the unified whole. Cloaking their individual timbres into a sinewy mass, the result is a tight and fascinating exploration of contrapuntal improvisation.

1. White Dead 23:14

2. Yellow Dead 09:31

3. Purple Dead 09:41

4. Spotted Dead 05:22

Dave Rempis, alto sax, baritone sax

Joe Morris, guitar

Tomeka Reid, cello

Jim Baker, piano

Recorded live at Elastic Arts in Chicago, IL 

August 8th, 2013 

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Dave Zuchowski 

Produced by Dave Rempis 

Special thanks to Ken Vandermark for his help in organizing this concert.

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DEMY

Joe Mcphee, Jamie Saft, Joe Morris, Charles Downs - Ticonderoga (2015)

This quartet was born from a conversation between Joe Morris and Jamie Saft about their mutual fascination with John Coltrane’s “Live at the Village Vanguard Again” album. From there they decided to develop a project under the influence of the music played by Coltrane with his wife Alice Coltrane, Jimmy Garrison, Rashied Ali and a pair of guests, Pharoah Sanders and Emanuel Rahim. Right away they established that Morris would use a double bass, instead of his usual guitar, and that Saft would focus completely on acoustic piano, putting aside any electric and electronic keyboards. And they immediately named the two other contributors to the enterprise: reedist Joe McPhee – who in fact attended the recording of Coltrane’s “Vanguard Again” album, sitting in the front row – and drummer Charles Downs. These choices were obvious: McPhee and Downs are true living legends of free jazz. Morris had a well established musical relationship with McPhee and all loved Downs’ contributions, when he was known as Rashid Bakr, to the music of Cecil Taylor, Jemeel  Moondoc, William Parker and Roy Campbell. Then they figured out the name of the quartet: TICONDEROGA. The Mohawk word means “junction of two waterways”. Which waterways? Easy to guess: the original “new thing” fronted by Coltrane with Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman and what is now understood as structured improvised music. The final product hits you like a punch. A good, reviving, punch…

Joe McPhee  tenor and soprano saxofones

Jamie Saft  piano

Joe Morris  double bass

Charles Downs  drums

1. Beyond Days

2. Simplicity of Man

3. Leaves of Certain

4. A Backward King

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JAVI