Guitarist Joe Morris and the New CD "Camera"

Joe Morris is a horizontal cat. By that I do not mean that he spends his time lying on the couch. It's his improvisation style on guitar. It has extraordinary linear motion. Like a Jackson Pollock canvas he fills out his improvisations in an all-over sort of way. Not from top to bottom so much as from point A to point B. His lines are inventive, harmonically multivalent, continuous and very expressive. It's safe to say that nobody sounds like him. And it's not just that he is note-ful. He constructs melodic cells that not-so-much repeat as they form sets of variations on variations, continually spiraling upwards, to return at each pass in a differing way. And yet it is not cyclical lines he constructs, really. They are horizontal, reaching toward the future.

Well that's my take. Joe Morris is a guitar original. There's no better place to experience his playing than on his latest CD, Camera (ESP 4063). That's a nicely extended live set recorded this year at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Joining him is the equally all-over Luther Gray on drums, plus a kind of string section of Katt Hernandez on violin and Junko Fujiwara Simons on cello.

You get plenty of time to hear the group in action, and the action is quite good. There is a uniqueness to the sound. And for me it's a kind of horizontal experience, a journey in time, an unfolding of avant improvisatory melodic richness.

Joe Morris has created his own musically free zone. Go there on Camera and get transfixed. Don't miss him, especially this new one.

Mark O'Leary, Avant Electric Guitar; A Shaker Song for Obama's Inauguration

February 10, 2009—I woke up this morning with a song rattling around my head. Anyone who watched Obama’s inauguration last [year] will recall the moment where Yo Yo Ma and his distinguished colleagues played an arrangement of American folk material, part of which involved the Shaker hymn “’Tis A Gift to Be Simple.” Now that happens to be a wonderful song, profound in its lyrics and unforgettable in its melody. Like many, I’m sure, I first came across it as part of Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” and only later knew it in its original Shaker incarnation. Since then it has been a theme song for a commercial, used as a background for TV shows, etc. Now I think the Shakers who first performed it in their starkly beautiful meeting halls would have been quite astounded if they we’re told that in the future it would be played during the inauguration ceremony of the first black President of the United States in 2009. In so many ways, that musical interlude was a remarkable moment among remarkable moments.

And so the song rang on in my head this morning and I thought, “Yes, to be simple. That’s it.” Of course there’s nothing very simple about the lives we all find ourselves in today. Simplicity-within-complexity is probably the best route to follow if you are not able to live on a little farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And that’s where today’s music comes in.

Ayler Records is a European concern devoted to modern Improv/Jazz in mostly its outer echelons. They record people who deserve a wider audience and they do a great job of it. Some time ago they inaugurated something that makes sense for today’s market. For those recordings that might not sell in landmark quantities, Ayler initiated a download-only series. For a modest sum, you can download a particular limited edition CD-rom album in the form of 300+ kbps MP3s. If the recording quality is good to begin with (and it generally is), this upper-level MP3 format does not sound at all bad. Blindfolded, you might think you are listening to an ordinary wav file CD. Anyway these downloads can be purchased at the site www.ayler.com. I will be devoting some attention to this series in the coming months. The first one on my stack we look at today.

Simplicity in complexity. You take the simple idea of a download-only release, in this case a simple lineup of electric guitar and drums, and you go from there. When the guitarist is Mark O’Leary and the drummer Han Bennink (for the release entitled Television), the results are anything but simple. It’s a full program of Free Improv from two exceptional musicians. Bennink is the famous and infamous Netherlandish bad boy of the drum set, who has gained international recognition as a member of ICP and other interesting ensembles. The guitarist Mark O’Leary is less well known, but deserves a recognition that seems to be coming to him as we speak (or write). He’s an Irish fellow with a fertile musical imagination and a formidable set of chops.

The CD is a continual barrage of notes and energy, with varying levels of intensity. It is a urgent dialogue between two gifted improvisers. Bennink is the ever inventive drummer as always, coaxing drummer’s drummer cascades of set color and texture; O’Leary shows considerable linear line-making abilities and a harmonic sense that has sophistication but is ever melded to a fire of commitment and passion. It is a wonderful session. Judging from the music clips on his My Space page, Mr. O’Leary also does some interesting larger group out-fusion projects too.

Television is a major duet recording and should not be missed by those who like to be challenged by open-ended, skillful complexity. And that’s simple. Shaking and quake-ing. . .

Timucin Sahin, Rather Fabulous New Guitarist

There is a guitarist out there named Timucin Sahin and he has something going for him. He plays a conventional six-string electric and a seven-string fretless electric, and in either case he has a sound and attack that does not look back so much as look forward.

This can be heard to good advantage on his new album BAFA (Challenge), a quartet date. The music is advanced and the players at the top of their craft. In addition to Sahin there is John O’Gallagher on alto sax, a man with something to say on his horn and the technique and imagination to realize it. He puts together lines that startle and affirm that he knows where he wants to go at any moment. I’ve reviewed some of his own records in the recent past and I must say he impresses me. The rhythm team of Thomas Morgan on bass and Tyshawn Sorey, drums, is right there where they need to be. Sorey has made quite a reputation for himself in his own recordings and with others, and what he does here bears witness to his continued musical importance on the scene.

It is Timucin, though, that especially impresses. His compositions have a currency that is avant garde without being in a shock mode. And his playing is something to hear. Sometimes he seems to be tuning down, or using very lanky strings, so that he gets deep wiry bends that are phrased with seamless momentum, the accent on musical statement. This may also have something to do with the plasticity a fretless guitar affords. Other times he strings together more conventionally articulated phrases that don’t sound like they came from anyone else.

It is tabula rasa time! Sahin's sophisticated harmonic and melodic trajectory puts him among a handful of new guitarists out there who build on the free tradition without copping licks from their forebears.

This is a fine album from a guitarist that might just become a big influence in years to come. He is just marvelous right now, though, so don’t wait until later. Check him out on this album and get in on the ground floor.

The Electric Avant Guitar of Joe Morris

Originally posted on February 9, 2008

Joe Morris is an avant-jazz electric guitarist who released a nice CD in 2007 called Rebus (Clean Feed). He is joined by Chicago tenor stalwart Ken Vandermark and Luther Gray on drums. It is one of those freewheeling sessions that grows on you the more you listen. Each cut is loosely constructed and each has a varying mood. The stuff is mucho cool in my opinion and shows you what three improvisers can come up with when inspired and mutually attuned.

A good place to find it and other jazz obscurities is http://www.cadencebuilding.com/. Check out the CD ordering service. They carry all kinds of hard to find and terrific jazz titles at decent prices. While we're at it for rock oddities http://www.forcedexposure.com/ is good.