 PHIL MORRISON Born in Boston in 1934, Phil Morrison "appreciated" music before he decided to give it a go. He took his sweet time - after 19 years of listening to bebop records by the likes of Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie, Morrison decided to pick up a set of drum sticks while serving in the armed forces in Japan. But it would be with the upright bass that Morrison would make his name. Upon retuning to Boston, in the late 50s, he discovered "there weren't too many bass players around. But there were some great drummers!" Morrison decided against competition, and began playing bass in a group with Sam Rivers and a young Tony Williams in 1960. And although this might come as a surprise to anyone who's heard his amazing chops, Morrison never learned how to read music. "You get by - and chord changes I can read," he states. "But you know the main thing was playing, and being creative. Sam (was) a very free type player, with some serious background. Fortunately, by osmosis, I learned a lot of it." After an ill-fated attempt to play free jazz for vacationing mainlanders in Hawaii, Morrison returned to Boston in the mid 60s and hooked up with Monty Stark. "He had this gig at a small nightclub, called The Crossroads, near Berklee. I had heard about him, so I went down and met him and we hit it off," Morrison remembers. "Someone had told me there was a good vibe player there and, you know, you're local and you want to see the jazz cats out there." So did Stark live up to his expectations? "He was just a genius," Morrison replies. "I admired his spirit, and definitely his playing. Here's this Oklahoma country boy, playing these sophisticated vibes! He was very hip, you know what I mean?" Stark and Morrison went onto become the nucleus of the Stark Reality. Morrison's upright skills were featured prominently on the band's first recording, "Say Brother," and - if Stark's memory is correct - it was his electric bass solo on the previously unissued "Pretty Music" that convinced Ahmad Jamal to sign the band to their AJP deal. On the Carmichael covers, Morrison's uncanny ability to stretch the funkiest notes from his bass guitar strings shines bright. (He's playing a Morse Code message on "Rocket Ship.") Speaking of which, how did an out-song like "Rocket Ship" fit into the Music Shop program? "Well, the meat of the show would be Hoagy singing that song like it was originally done," Morrison laughs. "You can rest assured that Hoagy didn't do the "Rocket Ship" the way the Stark Reality did! But there's probably a segment of our "Rocket Ship" which was a little palatable - maybe 30 seconds - and they'd play that behind credits." Morrison sums up the zeitgeist of the times in three words: "searching, experiencing, experimenting." "To this day, I look back with great fondness," Morrison states of his time spent with Stark and his crew. "Monty, he was the so called spiritual leader of the group. And with him, it was like anything goes. There was no such thing as a wrong note. And so that gave you the freedom." He laughs, then continues, "The more wrong the better, probably!" Phil Morrison Bio World Unity Jazz Ensemble MySpace Philanthropy - Phil Morrison Trio featuring Keith Williams 
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