Home » Jazz Musicians » Jeffrey Morgan

Jeffrey Morgan

Jeffrey Morgan was born in the U.S.A. in 1954. He started playing violin when he was 10 and later integrated into a youth orchestra. At 19 he was inspired by The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra and picked up the saxophone, trumpet, clarinet and started playing the piano as well. During his university studies he organized a Freeform Music Workshop in 1975. A year later he attended the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY, and studied under Karl Berger, Oliver Lake and participated in workshops with Don Cherry. In 1976 he created his first compositional work for music and dance – Distress Mistress, and performed his first ensemble work, The Delirium Dimension. He also met saxophone player Bert Wilson and began a very productive collaborative musical friendship. In 1977 he created his first multi-media interdisciplinary work – Galactic Visions, a composition for music, dance, slide projectors, costumes, and light design. Morgan graduated from The Evergreen State College in 1977 with a Bachelor of the Arts degree: Studies were focused on the performing arts, e.g., music and experimental theater; and Eastern philosophy and Native American culture. In 1983 he released his first documented solo and ensemble works, "Quasar Mach", on LP. In 1984, along with Paul Hoskin, he co-founded the New Art Orchestra in Seattle, Washington. In 1987, Morgan moved to Birmingham, Alabama and worked with dancers Mary Horn and Susan Hefner; he also started an ongoing collaboration with LaDonna Smith. In 1988 he made his first pilgrimage to Europe in search of greener pastures and has since played with dozens of notable improvisors including Alan Silva, Keith Rowe, Peter Kowald, Paul Lytton and Xu Feng Xia just to name a few. From 1991 to 1996 he organized the Drang in Klang festival for experimental and improvised music, and in 1994 he established another open-door workshop for Conceptual Composition and Improvisation in Cologne, which led to invitations to lead other workshops in Bielefeld, Hamburg, Lisbon, Leeds and Wuppertal. He currently resides in Cologne, Germany.

More now:
Jack Be Nimble - the book!

Listen on Soundcloud

On Wings and Feathers - a short story


Tags

1
Album Review

Casserley / Illvibe / Morgan / Sjostrom: Live At The Club Polnischer Versager

Read "Live At The Club Polnischer Versager" reviewed by Robin B James


Four musicians, two songs, one clocking in at 32:06 minutes and the other at 23:39 minutes. The action takes place deep in outer space, the club is located in Berlin and the physical event was recorded in 2016. The four musicians had never before played together, but they are all professional players so the chemistry is profound. They were each born in very different places and times. Harri Sjöström was born in Finland in 1952, played piano and guitar in ...

2
Album Review

Jeffrey Morgan: Quasar-Mach

Read "Quasar-Mach" reviewed by Robin B James


Stark, electronic, space-age, experimental jazz by Jeffrey Morgan and friends, a gift from the 1980s when the left field was exuberant, loud and sometimes harsh. In those halcyon days, when you saw that a musician played more than one instrument on a tune, there was no multitracking, each musician would have an array of instruments laid out before them and while the event was going down they would pick up and play whatever was called for in the arrangement. Each ...

1
Album Review

Morgan & Casserley: Exoplanets

Read "Exoplanets" reviewed by Robin B James


Exoplanets is an album which explores the darkness that is all around us. Is it all catastrophe and despair? Clearly not, because science transcends emotions, and happiness survives negative emotions. Each of the track titles refers to a planet, the sound is experimental and cosmic, from the “free jazz" school of expression. In our local galaxy, there are between 100 and 400 billion stars, and probably at least 100 billion planets. Around 3,500 exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than ...

Read more articles
Bert Wilson
saxophone, tenor
Karl Berger
vibraphone
Don Cherry
trumpet
Oliver Lake
saxophone
Sun Ra Arkestra
band / ensemble / orchestra
Art Ensemble Of Chicago
band / ensemble / orchestra

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Exoplanets

Creative Sources 389
2017

buy

Live At The Club...

Unisono-Records
2016

buy

Quasar-Mach

Au Roar Records
1981

buy

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.