Joe Morris has been thinking about improvisation longer than most musicians have been playing. A guitarist, bassist, composer, educator, and label founder, Morris has spent decades developing an approach to the instrument and to creative music that is utterly his own — rigorous, adventurous, and intellectually generous in equal measure.
A faculty member at the New England Conservatory’s jazz and improvisation department, Morris has collaborated with a remarkable cross-section of the free music world — from William Parker and Joe McPhee to Matthew Shipp and, closer to home, Ben Hall and Elisabeth Harnik. He runs Riti Records / Glacial Erratic, his artist-run imprint within the Catalytic Sound cooperative.
Morris has also written extensively about improvisation as a practice and a discipline, making him one of the few musicians who can articulate, with precision and warmth, what actually happens in the room when free music works. In this Q&A, he talks about all of it.
Q: What musicians and artists have you been looking at lately?
A: Christine Abdelnour. Herb Robertson.
Q: Films and books you’ve been into lately?
A: Lately, it’s been John Wick movies. Books, “The Secret Agent” by Joseph Conrad, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, and “Light of the Diddicoy” by Eamon Loingsigh.
Q: Favorite record no one else has listened to?
A: No idea how many have listened to it, but I know it hasn’t been heard by enough people. “Obliquities” by Evan Parker and Barry Guy. A masterpiece.
Q: Best thing you’ve seen on Youtube (recently)?
A: Tomomi Kubo & Ferran Besalduch, full set live in Barcelona, 23-11-2019, Magia Roja.
Q: Dream trio/quartet/quintet with historical figures?
A: Jimmy Lyons, Sunny Murray & Alan Silva.
Q: Last performance you saw that expanded the way you think about your own work?
A: See my choice in the Youtube question. I didn’t see it live but Tomomi Kubo on Ondes Martenot has stuck with me.
Q: Record you most wish you had played on?
A: “On the Corner” by Miles Davis.
Q: Recording people would be most surprised you listen to?
A: “Superfly” by Curtis Mayfield. Maybe that isn’t very surprising.