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Jazz Articles about Justin Morell

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 ...

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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 ...

5
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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