But Morris devised his own system of gestures and non-verbal indications to communicate his intentions to the participants, and a philosophical context to explain his point of view. The act of conduction is a vocabulary for the improvising ensemble.” Morris acknowledged that he did not invent the concept, specifically citing Charles Moffett – educator, bandleader, and former drummer for Ornette Coleman – with introducing him to the process and potential of conducted ensemble improvisations he later came to realize that many others, from Sun Ra to Frank Zappa, also used various aspects of spontaneous direction and organization in their music. Conduction, or conducted improvisation, by his own definition, is “a means by which a conductor may compose, (re)orchestrate, (re)arrange and sculpt with notated and non-notated music,” accomplishing this through “the immediate transmission of information and result. “Butch” Morris, born in 1947, was a cornetist, an improviser, a composer (of pieces which others could play), and, primarily, an exceptional practitioner of the art of conduction. If so, then the ethics of composition would seem to require only a vision, the expression of that vision, and acceptance of responsibility for that expression. And more, since the value of mental labor therefore likewise embraces the creative inspiration behind, say, Cageian indeterminacy, John Zorn’s game pieces, or any manner of unconventional notation – graphic or verbal – before the fact of actualized realization. Which at face value, unless you’re one of those who enjoy obsessing over where the boundaries of “proper and orderly” should be drawn, seems to once and for all legitimize free jazz, or any manner of spontaneous group improvisation, as a form of composition, like it or not. And that distinction between “mental” and “artistic” labor is certainly curious – implying that artistic labor occurs during the performance of an action (whether sculpting from a stone or blowing into a tuba, one supposes) as opposed to the conceptual labor of thinking, but that either or both can be responsible for whatever form of composition results. My well-worn Webster’s New Collegiate limits the definition of a composer to “one that composes esp: a person who writes music.” Taking a step backward, the entry on “compose” includes several juicy alternatives: “to form by putting together,” “to form the substance of,” “to arrange in proper or orderly form,” and my favorite, “to create by mental or artistic labor.” But notice there’s nothing here that says that the process of such formation necessarily be the product of one person at a time, a single sensibility. That’s the key, isn’t it? The dictionary is no help. I was no longer composing, I was being decomposed and recomposed. What started out intending to be a modest appreciation of the late Butch Morris became something else, a debate (with myself, inspired by all these outside sources) on the nature and meaning of composition. For example, as I began to compose this essay in my mind, taking pages of notes, deciding what facts were needed, what intuitive responses I could offer, what shape I could give it, before long the possibilities suggested by research, the breadth of material, and the experience of listening affected my judgment, my frame of reference, my writing. Soon, manipulating the material offers some unexpected new perspectives, discoveries enlarge the context, and the ending is never what you thought it would be. You start in one place with an idea, and gradually get eased, or quickly pushed, in another direction, then multiple directions. “Butch” Morris, 1998 ©Lawrence Svirchev 2013
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