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Dave Morgan

The composer, improviser, and double bassist Dave Morgan has collaborated with a wide range of jazz, pop and classical artists. His most recent recording is "Blue Is More Than A Color" Morgan was a recipient of a “New Works: Creation and Presentation" grant from Chamber Music America, which resulted in his recording, The Way of the Sly Man, featuring Jack Schantz, Howie Smith, Jamey Haddad, and Dan Wall. Morgan also composed the music for The Surprise of Being—Live at Birdland by the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra featuring Joe Lovano. A Tri-C Jazz Fest concert of Morgan’s transcriptions and arrangements of the music of Frank Zappa for the Jazz Unit featuring Ernie Watts and Mark Wood earned an Award of Achievement from Northern Ohio Live. He performed this music as guest artist with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra in December 2012. Morgan collaborates in crossover projects with Apollo’s Fire, the Internationally-acclaimed Baroque ensemble, and occasionally performs with The Cleveland Orchestra as a jazz bassist and bass guitarist. The American Wind Symphony Orchestra has commissioned several pieces, including “Colors of Your Dreams,” “Reflections and Mediations”, and “The Art of Seven.” Several of Morgan’s orchestral pieces are recorded on Centaur Records. The YSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble directed by Stephen Gage has released "Made In Youngstown" which includes three of his compositions for wind ensemble, featuring several YSU faculty members as guest soloists. 

I teach composition, improvisation and bass at Youngstown State University. If you'd like more information about our programs, contact me via email. Here's a quick outline of the composition and bass programs:

Composition 

 Inspiration is merely the reward for working every day. (Maurice Ravel)

The composition program at the Dana School of Music focuses on exploration of the creative process and the nature and meaning of music. Composition majors acquire a breadth of knowledge and a solid technique in the service of finding a personal path. Compositional technique involves the ability to capture fleeting sound ideas and the process of shaping these ideas into coherent musical forms. Instruction involves identifying and cultivating the individual voice of each composer while simultaneously undertaking a rigorous exploration of the vast possibilities of melody, harmony, rhythm, counterpoint, timbre, text setting and form. 

There are many paths available for the composer of today, including composing and arranging for instrumental ensembles of various sizes, creating electronic music, and song writing. It is crucial for the composer to listen to and learn music from a wide array of genres and styles. The composition major will develop powerful and versatile tools to bring to any creative situation, facilitating satisfying artistic choices free of technical or imaginative limitations.

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37
Album Review

Kent Engelhardt & Stephen Enos: Madd For Tadd

Read "Madd For Tadd" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The masterworks on this second edition of Madd for Tadd are presented on two discs, one of which bears the name of one of composer/pianist Tadd Dameron's classic themes, “Our Delight." Oddly, the other is named for the only non-Dameronian item on the menu, “Central Avenue Swing," written by saxophonist and Dameron chronicler Kent Engelhardt who adapted the composer's tasteful charts for a big band and co-leads the ensemble with trumpeter Steve Enos. Although he is most ...

5
Album Review

Funk Shui NYC: Shark NATO on a Plane

Read "Shark NATO on a Plane" reviewed by Jack Bowers


While some older listeners (and younger ones as well) may be thrown slightly off-kilter and find it hard to apprehend exactly what Funk Shui NYC is about, it must be conceded that the New York-based ensemble in all likelihood represents the future of big-band jazz, or at least a sizeable and assertive chunk of it. The name itself offers an explicit clue, as Funk Shui is indeed heavy on the funk (rather less on the shui, whatever that is), as ...

5
Album Review

Dave Morgan: Blue Is More Than a Color

Read "Blue Is More Than a Color" reviewed by Mark Corroto


With the modern availability of inexpensive recording technology, seemingly anyone can turn out a jazz release. It is, accordingly, a pleasure when a release comes about marked by superior craftsmanship. Blue Is More Than A Color, a jazz orchestra disc, is a fine example of not only excellent sound (not an easy task with 26 pieces) but smart compositions, skillful arrangements and impressive soloing. The recording is the brainchild of composer and bassist Dave Morgan, a mainstay of the north-east ...

5
Album Review

Dave Morgan: Blue Is More Than a Color

Read "Blue Is More Than a Color" reviewed by Jack Bowers


If nothing else, bassist-composer Dave Morgan's album, Blue Is More Than a Color, affirms that big-band jazz is alive and well in the Akron, Ohio, area. Perhaps more than coincidentally, Morgan's large and well-drilled ensemble plies its trade on a regular basis at Akron's Blu Jazz Club whose patrons may presumably hear previews of the seven original compositions by Morgan that comprise the sum total of a colorful and provocative studio session. Morgan's compositions are resourceful and ...

55
Live Review

Dave Morgan & Friends: Kirtland, OH, February 24, 2012

Read "Dave Morgan & Friends: Kirtland, OH, February 24, 2012" reviewed by Matt Marshall


Dave Morgan & Friends40th Annual Lakeland Jazz FestivalKirtland, OHFebruary 24, 2012On the opening night of the 40th Annual Lakeland Jazz Festival, bassist Dave Morgan gathered a host of friends and treated Northeast Ohioans to a rare performance of his The Way of the Sly Man (Being Time, 2010). The piece, based on the ideas of 20th-century spiritualist G. I. Gurdjieff--mixing jazz with Middle Eastern, Indian and African music plus Gurdjieff's own musical ideas--hadn't been performed ...

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Extended Analysis

Dave Morgan: The Way of the Sly Man

Read "Dave Morgan: The Way of the Sly Man" reviewed by Matt Marshall


Dave MorganThe Way of the Sly Man Being There2010 The teachings of 20th century mystic G. I. Gurdjieff have appealed to their share of artists, pianist Keith Jarrett, guitarist Robert Fripp and singer Kate Bush being among the more famous musicians to fall under Gurdjieff's spell. Jarrett, in fact, went so far as to record an album of Gurdjieff's solo piano music--G.I. Gurdjieff Sacred Hymns (ECM, 1980). It's unclear how devout a ...

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Performance / Tour

Spotlighting Naples-area jazz talent

Spotlighting Naples-area jazz talent

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes

Two Naples FL bandleaders brought their groups to Port Charlotte on Monday, April 11 to close the Charlotte County Jazz Society's 25th Anniversary Season with a double concert. Dave Morgan, a triple threat performer on vibes, vocals and drums, stuck to the first two skills in a strong performance by his quartet, which included Mac Chrupcala on piano, Mark Neuenschwander on bass and Bill E. Peterson on drums. Morgan dug deep into the jazz repertoire to present several classic tunes ...

Donald Rosenberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that The Way of the Sly Man "is a work of dazzling and haunting originality, deeply expressive, richly scored and abounding in contemplative and swinging personality - and played to the hilt by an ensemble of brilliant local musicians." You can read his entire article about the recording via this link: http://www.cleveland.com/musicdance/index.ssf/2010/09/compo ser_dave_morgan_melds_inf.html

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