Morgan Powell’s ON AND OFF THE SCORE
“…Through the processes of composing, performing, and hearing this music the bar is raised to a new level of what constitutes ‘creative’ music.”
— Jim McNeely, jazz pianist/composer
“…Powell’s music sits at the intersection of the experimental jazz tradition and the classical avant-garde…”
— Mark Stryker, music critic, Detroit Free Press
“Morgan Powell and I grew up in the same musically unpromising small west Texas town. I was struck by his inventiveness, his passion for music, and his discipline….. He had such qualities nearly fifty years ago, and he has them still.”
— Larry McMurtry, novelist
“Morgan’s music has soul, spirit, song, effect, guts. I listen to these tunes and I get about every emotional feeling you can get.”
— Don Owens, Professor of Music, Northwestern University
“What Powell’s done all those years, he’s done quietly, yet he’s one of the best in avant garde writing. He’s the king. He’s the fountainhead.”
— John Von Ohlen
*American jazz drummer
*Professor, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati
I think it’s the third eye that [Powell’s] music engages, deep inside the head. Despite its frequent magnitude and volume, it is essentially introspective music, and will trick only the inattentive or fearful into thinking it extrovert…Not only does he create great sound, he scrupulously orders sound elements to make intense reactions available when they are unexpected or even resisted. Thus he composes in a large sense—composing, proposing, and suggesting to the listener possibilities for idea and emotion.
— Ann Starr
www.Ann-Starr.com
Morgan Powell, born in West Texas in 1938, is a composer and jazz trombonist whose works are performed internationally. Powell’s primary compositional interests are in the areas of instrumental and vocal music; he explores the rich and complex components of improvisation and the spirit and elements of jazz, together with “New Music” compositional concepts, techniques and notation.
