(By producer Frank Tafuri)
Tafuri: You've made
quite a few albums now in different band configurations,
including two or more with your quartet, and yet you feel
like Underthru is something really different. Why
to you feel that way?
Morris: I try hard
to only record music that's different than what I've already
done in terms of the feel, or the overall flow. I
try to present a different kind of space of experience
for us as players and for the listener. Actually
I've led five quartet recordings including Illuminate and Elsewhere. And
three with Mat Maneri on violin. Underthru is
less turbulent than A Cloud of Black Birds and
less tightly wound and arranged than You Be Me. This
CD is more relaxed, more spacious, cooler in feel than
the other quartet CDs. Underthru is down
(in the cool sense), but moves ahead. Mat,
Chris, and Gerald are really strong and totally original
voices
Tafuri: Beyond the
feel of Underthru, the tunes on the album seem
to fit together compositionally. How did you go about
arriving at the pieces on the album?
Morris: I tend to write
groups of tunes that hopefully fit together and also contrast
each other. My understanding of repetoire as a "free
jazz" artist allows me to attempt different theamatic
and structural material to alter the pattern of our performance. So
I write what I think will give us a place to play freely
and not repeat ourselves. Sometimes no theme or structure
is a very confining thing. Often the freest or the
most structured parts are invisible in the performance
anyway and also mutually supportive. I work really
hard on the sequence of each recording so that they can
be heard like a story. Hopefully the listener can
fill in the content of the story.
Tafuri: On the other
hand, if one gets out and listens to your various albums,
there's quite a variety of music presented there -- even beyond the
different makeups of the groups. How do you go about
anticipating your next album?
Morris: I'm trying
to bring out as many aspects and meanings as I can from
my music. I want to be true to who I am but expand
the function of it all. It starts with some vague
sense of a kind of feel. Then it usually takes a
few months to decipher that feel. Then I start to
write the pieces to capture that feel. I try to edit
out the parts that sound too technical or complicated. Keep
it clear.
Tafuri: Your compositions
are a reflection of your unique style of playing and both
your playing and tunes have been turning heads and making
people pay attention to your unique style. We've
known each other a few years now, but I don't think I've
ever asked you how you arrived at your style. And,
related to that, did you start out playing as "unconventionally" as
you do now or was it an evolution?
Morris: I remember
the day I made the decision to try not to play like other
guitarists. I figured that if someone was unique
enough to come up with their own thing and inspire me,
the least I could was leave their thing alone and try to
deal with my own. It was clear to me from the start
that jazz is completely about being unconventional and
unique. The real body of work is made up of
the inventions of unconventional musicians. I
take that model and I try to deal with the primary influences
that those musicians made us aware of and I try to speak
about those things with my own voice. My way
of playing is just an effort to deal with the truest version
I know of the meaning and motion of the music. So
instead of learning to play the guitar by just studying
guitarists, I studied the asthetics of the musicians who
were the most original, and I tried to trust my own version
of what they suggseted we deal with. Adding to those
suggestions is the ultimate goal. My version is not
fixed. It's changing all the time.
Tafuri: You said "The
real body of work is made up of the inventions of unconventional
musicians." Who are some of those musicians
and why are you attracted to them?
Morris: The list is
endless. The point isn't who did what, but what they did. Monk
never ceases to amaze me, of course. The range of
feeling in his tunes is enormous. Dolphy and his
ability to contribute to every major area of the music
during his time. Sun Ra because he refused to limit
himself. He played whatever he wanted to play. I
could go on and on. The point is that they all worked
off of a knowledge of a very clear sub-structure that is
common to anyone who has something to say in this kind
of music, and they filled it in with their own content. Some
of it is fun, some of it is serious, some is sad and some
is like science, but it's all about people and life and
nature and mystery.
Tafuri: Getting back
to Underthru for a minute, would you tell us a
little about each tune on the album?
Morris: The title
piece is a medium tempo vamp in 6/4 with a freely
placed overlayed melody. The violin plays the first
solo which allows me to do some very spare comping. Writers
always say that I don't play chords or comp. The
main reason for me to work in a quartet is so I can comp. I
do a lot of it but I try to never do it in a predictible
way so they miss it.
" Remarks" is a blues. Each phrase of the melody can be played at any tempo. The melody is intentionally loose. That's the dynamic blues part. The kind of "bridge" part of the piece is a trill/swell which creates a strong mysterious dynamic.
"Routine 3" works as a catapult into a kind of vertical swing. I love to improvise using big intervals and try to make them sound like a clear melody. Mat has his own way of playing in this context. Chris' solo on this piece is beautiful.
"Two Busses and a Long Walk" is what I call a flowthru melody structure. Mat, Chris and Gerald react to the melody I play. The melody suggests a certain sensibility, kind of exotic. Of course, there is a long history of exotic tunes in jazz. I've written and recorded a few of them. The piece is very open ended.
The last piece "Manipulatives" is what I call a spring board. The head, like a lot of my tunes has all the reference material we need to construct a performance. These kinds pieces seem simple, but it's really hard to write a new one. They are intentionally short and dynamic. Something to jump off of.
" Remarks" is a blues. Each phrase of the melody can be played at any tempo. The melody is intentionally loose. That's the dynamic blues part. The kind of "bridge" part of the piece is a trill/swell which creates a strong mysterious dynamic.
"Routine 3" works as a catapult into a kind of vertical swing. I love to improvise using big intervals and try to make them sound like a clear melody. Mat has his own way of playing in this context. Chris' solo on this piece is beautiful.
"Two Busses and a Long Walk" is what I call a flowthru melody structure. Mat, Chris and Gerald react to the melody I play. The melody suggests a certain sensibility, kind of exotic. Of course, there is a long history of exotic tunes in jazz. I've written and recorded a few of them. The piece is very open ended.
The last piece "Manipulatives" is what I call a spring board. The head, like a lot of my tunes has all the reference material we need to construct a performance. These kinds pieces seem simple, but it's really hard to write a new one. They are intentionally short and dynamic. Something to jump off of.
Tafuri: You've been
doing this for quite a few years and you're still doing
it. Why do you think it's taken people so long to "catch
up" to you, if you will? And have they really "caught
up"?
Morris: Some people
have caught up. Not enough have though. You're
right, I'm still doing it and I'm just getting started. It's
my job to be out front. I'm doing my own thing with
tremendous musicians who are doing their own things. We
aren't interpretive artists or genre benders and we aren't
trying to shock people. We are searching our souls
and trying to touch people in an honest way with music. I
knew when I decided to do this with my life that it would
be hard. Part of the reward though is knowing that
I haven't done one contrived thing to get over. People
will catch up, but more importantly, new people are into
this. Listeners looking for their own experiences. They
know that we are playing to them now. We aren't playing
to the academy waiting for their approval. The audience
that gets what we do knows that the reward is in hearing
the flow of sound, melody and rhythm. If they listen
carefully the logic, patterns, and expression will reveal
themselves. This music is for and about the people
listening.
Tafuri: With so much
critics' attention, how's the gigging going? Has
that acclaim translated into more or better gigs?
Morris: I have
two things to be grateful for in that department: I have
more gigs than I used to have and not enough of them.
Tafuri: If you could
have the "perfect" gig, within reason, what would
that be?
Morris: Six months
with a guarantee plus a percentage of the door in a small
club in New York that has never had music before. New
people would hear us and mark a time in their lives hearing
what we play.
Tafuri: Here's another,
let's say, "fun" question. If you could
play with anyone, living or dead, who (and you can pick
more than one) would that be and why?
Morris: I love Monk,
Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons and Steve McCall the most, but the
crew I play with now are really in it. Mat, Chris
and Gerald are as solid and as great at what they do as
any before them. I want to play with them now and
lay down our own history. Just because the century is over
that doesn't mean the World is ending. Time will
continue and music lovers will want to remember this period
for what happened now. Other people can spend their
lives focusing on the past. We're playing for now. If
people listen to this music and think about their lives,
they'll have another way to see themselves in their own
time.
