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Justin Morell

Guitarist and composer Justin Morell received his BA from UCLA, an MA from California State University East Bay, and his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon where he studied under Robert Kyr and David Crumb. While his main interests are composition and jazz performance, he is an experienced guitarist of all styles. Justin comes from a family of musicians: His father, John, is a jazz guitarist who has worked with noted artists from Shelly Manne to Miles Davis, and his grandfather, Carl Fischer, composed such standards as “You’ve Changed” and “We’ll Be Together Again.”

Justin grew up in Los Angeles and got his start as a professional musician there where he worked with a number of notable jazz and studio musicians. During that time, he performed as a freelance guitarist on a variety of jazz projects as well as on television and movie soundtracks. In 2001, Justin moved to Oakland, CA, where he continued to perform and compose music. During his four years there, he performed at jazz venues, premiered new classical works, played in pit orchestras, and studied composition with Frank LaRocca. He later moved to Eugene and Portland, OR, where he freelanced as a guitarist, composer, and teacher. Justin is Assistant Professor of Music in composition and theory at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania.

Justin’s newest recording project will be released December 2018 on ArtistShare. It features guitarist Adam Rogers and the University of Miami Frost Concert Jazz Band, directed by John Daversa, performing Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra. In 2013, he released Subjects and Complements, a collection of new works for ten-piece jazz ensemble. The recording features world-renowned jazz and classical performers Bob Sheppard, Ben Wendel, Matt Otto, Phil O’Connor, John Daversa, Alan Ferber, George Thatcher, Leonard Thompson, Damian Erskine, and Mark Ferber (more). Featuring bassist Todd Sickafoose and pianist Leonard Thompson, triOrange, has been met with critical acclaim since its release in the Fall of 2003. the music of steely_dan, his fourth project as a leader, was chosen as one of the best CDs of 2002 by NPR’s third largest radio station, WBEZ Chicago.

In 2005, Justin had the privilege of traveling to Denmark where his piece, “Jazz Ensemble,” won third place in the Danish Radio Big Band International Thad Jones Competition. It was one of five finalists chosen among more than one hundred submissions, and was performed in a live broadcast from Copenhagen.

Recent commissions include: five new arrangements of original works by saxophonist Idit Shner, a song cycle for baritone and string quartet for the Pacific Serenades concert series in Los Angeles, a work for large jazz ensemble for the Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble, and new music for saxophone, bass and guitar premiered at the North American Saxophone Alliance convention in Arizona. Justin has had works performed by Fireworks Ensemble, the Oregon Jazz Ensemble, SO Percussion, the Onyx String Quartet, ECCE (Eugene Contemporary Chamber Orchestra), the University of Oregon Saxophone Quartet, and has had pieces premiered at the Composers’, Inc., concert series, the Oregon Composers Forum, and Bargemusic in New York. Justin can also be heard on CDs, television, and film as a guitarist and as a drummer, as well as recording engineer and producer. Some projects he’s worked on include Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can, Lifetime Original Movies, TV sitcom The Naked Truth, the Lion King-San Francisco, and various TV and radio jingles.

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Album Review

John Daversa: All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren

Read "All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Quest'ambizioso concerto per tromba e orchestra composto e orchestrato da Justin Morell per il trombettista John Daversa rinnova il fascino delle pagine che Gil Evans scrisse per Miles Davis negli anni cinquanta. Nessuno dei due ha voluto ricreare quei lavori e si tratta di sfumature, dovute al clima impressionista, al lirismo della tromba sordinata e agli arrangiamenti maestosi. Quasi sconosciuti in Italia Morell e Daversa sono artisti di prim'ordine ed hanno prodotto un concept album splendido, ottenendo ...

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Album Review

Justin Morell: Exit Music For Intelligent Life on Earth

Read "Exit Music For Intelligent Life on Earth" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Guitarist Justin Morell thinks big. His concept for writing the compositions for All Without Words: Variations Inspired By Loren (Tiger Turn, 2021), from the John Daversa Jazz Orchestra Featuring Justin Morell, came to being via his experiences in raising his autistic son. Now, his Exit Music For Intelligent Life On Earth explores the challenges concerning climate change and a potential search for a new home for humankind. Science fiction novels contain a subgenre called speculative fiction. Exit Music ...

5
Album Review

John Daversa Jazz Orchestra: All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren

Read "All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Music can be inspired by many things, such as romantic affection, personal experience, world events and social concerns among many others. This extraordinary piece of music was inspired by a parent's love for a child. Trumpeter John Daversa asked his friend, composer Justin Morell, to write a large-scale orchestral piece for him. Morell came up with a composition based on his life with his son, Loren, who is autistic. Loren struggled with verbal communication from a very young ...

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Album Review

John Daversa Jazz Orchestra Featuring Justin Morell: All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren

Read "All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Trumpeter John Daversa takes the biggest artistic challenge of his career with All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren. It is a large scale orchestral piece--a “jazz with strings" affair if it needs a label--that goes well its seminal predecessors in the style, to wit a pair of Charlie Parker With Strings albums (both bearing the same title), initially released on EmArcy, and reissued together later on a CD compilation (plus extra tracks) in 1995 on Verve; and trumpeter Clifford ...

4
Album Review

Justin Morell: Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra

Read "Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Justin Morell, himself a world-class guitarist, does not play guitar (or anything else) on this splendid new album, which, even so, could not have taken flight without him. Morell, an assistant professor of music at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, composed and arranged the inclusive three-movement Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra, performed in his stead by guitar maestro Adam Rogers with the University of Miami's superb Frost Concert Jazz Band directed by 2019 double Grammy Award winner John Daversa. ...

2
Album Review

Justin Morell: Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra

Read "Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


Guitarist/composer Justin Morell has recorded six albums as a leader, and written several ensemble pieces that featured guitar parts. He found that he enjoyed exploring the guitar's capabilities, so the Concerto was created to focus on the guitar as solo instrument accompanied by a large ensemble in the classical concerto tradition. He joined with his lifelong friend John Daversa (director of the Frost Concert Jazz Band at the University of Miami) and recruited veteran jazz guitarist Adam Rogers to play ...

3
Album Review

Justin Morell: Justin Morell Dectet - Subjects and Compliments

Read "Justin Morell Dectet - Subjects and Compliments" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Guitarist Justin Morell has succumb to his inner conflict between jazz and classical musics and composed a dozen pieces bowing to each in what may best be considered a jazz suite. This is not Gunther Schuller's “Third Stream" or the Modern Jazz Quartet's chamber jazz. It is a little bigger than that. Morell leads one of those provocative ensembles that is neither a big band or a small combo.There is orchestral magic between seven-and eleven-member groups that cast ...

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Recording

Composer / Guitarist Justin Morell To Release 'Exit Music For Intelligent Life On Earth'

Composer / Guitarist Justin Morell To Release 'Exit Music For Intelligent Life On Earth'

Source: Justin Morell

Guitarist and composer Justin Morell is releasing his newest album, Exit Music for Intelligent Life on Earth, a collection of twenty-one short works for multiple guitars and drums. This is the follow-up to the much acclaimed All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren (2021) by the John Daversa Jazz Orchestra featuring Justin Morell, on which Morell was the composer and guitarist. This unusual collection of mostly short pieces, the majority lasting little more than a minute or two, depicts a ...

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Recording

Multi-Grammy Winner John Daversa Releases 'All Without Words: Variations Inspired By Loren' With Justin Morell

Multi-Grammy Winner John Daversa Releases 'All Without Words: Variations Inspired By Loren' With Justin Morell

Source: Mouthpiece Music

Trumpet master John Daversa is releasing his newest CD, All Without Words: Variations Inspired by Loren, a lush, orchestral jazz trumpet concerto composed by his lifelong friend and collaborator Justin Morell. Daversa is a prolific performing and recording artist whose projects often reflect important social themes, like his three-time Grammy-winning release, American Dreamers, Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom (2019), which gave voice to young undocumented people known as “Dreamers,” or his most recent project, Cuarentena: With Family at Home ...

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Recording

Frost Concert Jazz Band Under The Direction Of John Daversa Releases Concerto For Guitar And Jazz Orchestra By Justin Morell, Featuring Adam Rogers

Frost Concert Jazz Band Under The Direction Of John Daversa Releases Concerto For Guitar And Jazz Orchestra By Justin Morell, Featuring Adam Rogers

Source: Mouthpiece Music

Jazz is an art form that allows musicians to drawn upon an endless array of stylistic and cultural traditions. While a number of jazz artists have incorporated the sophisticated forms of classical music in their writing and performances, there are few true concerto works for a jazz orchestra and fewer still composed for guitar. On Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra, three master musicians have joined forces to create a project of great beauty and depth. The music is composed ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Exit Music For...

Sonic Frenzy Records
2022

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Blood Orange

Secret Hatch Records
2005

buy

The Music Of Steely...

Sonic Frenzy Records
2002

buy

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