Jeff Morris

Jeff Morris is an improviser, coder, and composer. His live sampling debut album, Interfaces (Ravello Records) explores different ways for a computer performer to fit in a jazz trio without dominating it (like Ornette Coleman thought of the piano for forty years). Jeff is joined by free jazz legend Karl Berger (vibes, piano) and NYC dynamo Joe Hertenstein (drums, found percussion).

In all his work, Jeff creates experiences that engage audiences’ minds with their surroundings. His performances, installations, lectures, and writings appear in international venues known for cutting- edge arts and deep questions in the arts. He has won awards for making art emerge from unusual situations: music tailored to architecture and cityscapes, performance art for the radio, and serious concert music for toy piano, robot, Sudoku puzzles, and paranormal electronic voice phenomena.

He has presented work in the Onassis Cultural Center (Athens), Triennale Museum (Milan), D–22 (Beijing’s avant-garde music scene), the International Symposium on Electronic Art (Vancouver, Canada), the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum (Austin), the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s “Open House Chicago,” and the Boston Microtonal Society.

His work has won awards in the Concours de Bourges (France), Viseu Rural (Portugal), “Music in Architecture” International Competition (Austin), the Un“Cage”d Toy Piano Competition (NYC), and the “Radio Killed the Video Star” Competition (NYC). He has albums of live sampling improvisations on Ravello Records (distributed internationally and online via Naxos).

Tags

“For those bored with free jazz and straight-ahead classicism, Interfaces opens a doorway, through which it plunges headfirst.” — JazzTimes

“Because of [his] manipulations of samples, electronically produced sounds don’t come across as like something alien in combination with a violin but serve as complicated contra point.” — The Improvisor, reviewing the International Society of Improvised Music (ISIM) conference

“The sensuality of sound and its behaviour is celebrated here” … “Convincing work that foregrounds first- principles in a manner that is creative and engaging (simple systems/complex music)” — New Interfaces in Musical Expression international conference

“Quite interesting and, dare I say, entertaining” — Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X (xCoAx)

“Jeff Morris’s piece was one of the most intriguing we received, and Tim was keen to spend some time looking at the issues it raised… a delight to play and very well written… His interest in the piece was clear by the extraordinary amount of homework he had done…” — Composition Today

“Morris uses technology more as an instrument unto itself by using his own skills in improvisation to respond to the performances of the music as it progresses

“For those bored with free jazz and straight-ahead classicism, Interfaces opens a doorway, through which it plunges headfirst.” — JazzTimes

“Quite interesting and, dare I say, entertaining” — Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X (xCoAx)

“Morris uses technology more as an instrument unto itself by using his own skills in improvisation to respond to the performances of the music as it progresses. In this respect, the music is a natural outgrowth of third stream jazz.…a rather intriguing exploration as Morris deconstructs and reconstructs our expectations for what sound and music can be.” — Cinemusical

“Highly advanced music for Jazz aficionados and an audience way beyond.” — Nitestylez

“…an interesting and attention grabbing collection that is hard not to enjoy. If you're a collector of experimental music then there's much to get your head around here.” — Review Graveyard

“Morris acts as a conduit or on-the-fly-editor, shaping and squeezing these sounds through a bevy of digitally manipulative tactics until the birth on the other side is both true to the tone and texture of Karl Berger and Joe Hertenstein's piano and percussion but miles away in terms of listening experience.” — Tome to the Weather Machine

“Jeff Morris’s improvisation, while more firmly rooted in academic electronic music, was… evocative with its wide variety of sound sources and quick pace.” — Array (International Computer Music Association), reviewing the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival (BEAF)

“…brought an august, almost tomb-like research library to life in sound, video, and performance.” — World Architecture.

“…visitors heard music shaped by their own movements.” — Sculpture Magazine

“His work is fascinating. His music responds to my painting movement and we create a ‘loop’ of sound and color together.” — April Zanne Johnson, interviewed by Faburry Gallery

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Primary Instrument

Electronics

Location

Houston

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Clinic/Workshop Information

Jeff Morris creates experiences that engage audiences’ minds with their surroundings. His performances, installations, lectures, and writings appear in international venues known for cutting-edge arts and deep questions in the arts. He has won awards for making art emerge from unusual situations: music tailored to architecture and cityscapes, performance art for the radio, and serious concert music for toy piano, robot, Sudoku puzzles, and paranormal electronic voice phenomena. He has presented work in the Onassis Cultural Center (Athens), Triennale Museum (Milan), D–22 (Beijing’s avant-garde music scene), the International Symposium on Electronic Art (Vancouver, Canada), the Lyndon B