All that Jazz - Phil Morrison
More than six decades of it! The Golden Isles’ own Phil Morrison has been entertaining audiences worldwide for over 65 years with his creative and upbeat sound. To celebrate his 90th birthday, this prolific composer and bassist will be collaborating with several other accomplished musicians and special guest performers for a one-time concert at the historic Ritz Theatre in downtown Brunswick on March 17. Sharing the stage with Morrison will be Dr. Ken Trimmins, a Brunswick native now with Albany State University, on trumpet and Joe Watts of Jacksonville on piano/vocals/trombone. Together with Jody Espina on saxophone, Clyde Connor on drums, and multi-percussionist Ekendra Das, they make up the Phil Morrison Ken Trimmins Jazz Collective. Each of these veteran performers are amazing musicians in their own right. An extra special treat for the afternoon will be the appearance of Morrison’s longtime friend, pianist Keith Williams, who is flying in from Japan to perform with the quintet at the celebration of this beloved local jazz treasure.
Throughout Morrison’s incredible career, he has been called to play music in Europe, China, Japan, Brazil, Honduras, and the Golden Isles which he has called home for the past 30 years. No matter where he is in the world, Morrison always makes a point of collaborating with the musicians he meets to play and compose together while embracing racial harmony and the oneness of humanity. The songs and essays on his website, philtrio.blogspot.com, showcase his varied thoughts and interests and reflect his life’s mission. Even his email sign-off reads “Striving to be of Service to Humanity by Promoting International Harmony Through Music.”
Born and raised as one of six children in Boston, Massachusetts, Morrison attended Roxbury Memorial High School, an integrated school at the time, graduating in 1952. “There were Irish, Jews and Blacks there and I was the co-captain of the basketball team with a Jewish boy.” He enlisted in the Air Force upon graduation and became a radio operator, training at Sampson Air Force Base in New York. When he was transferred to Keesler AF Base in Biloxi, Mississippi for nine months to continue his radio training, he encountered a whole new world view. Morrison’s time in the South exposed him to a different kind of education: that of segregation and the realities of the Jim Crow era. “I was amazed that signs in town said “colored” and “white.” It wasn’t like that in Boston.”
In May 1953, Morrison was posted to Shiroi AF Base in occupied Japan, and it was there that his love of jazz blossomed. While he was learning the rhythms of Morse Code for the military a friend was also teaching him drumbeats on an upside-down metal ashtray. When Morrison was discharged in 1956, he took the skills he had learned back to Boston and took lessons on a more complete set of drums while he worked as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. After playing drums in Boston jazz clubs in the 1950s, he then learned the acoustic bass. “They always seemed to need a bass player, so I learned,” he explains. By the late 1950’s Morrison was able to quit his job with the post office to play jazz full time and continue to hone his acoustic bass skills.
In 1961, Morrison moved to Hawaii, playing a regular gig at Waikiki Beach hotels for two years. Through the kindness shown to him by Hawaiian members there, as opposed to many Hawaiians he had experienced who looked down on American Blacks, he learned about the Bah’i faith. The kindness represented by this faith and its emphasis on world peace and racial unity were tenets he appreciated and adopted into his own life. When he returned to Boston at the end of 1963, he carried his interest in that faith with him.
Morrison’s growth as a musician flourished between 1963 and 1978. He founded the band Stark Reality, toured with blues pioneer T-Bone Walker, and began composing his own songs. Stark Reality, founded with Monty Stark, was an eclectic and psychedelic fusion band that cut one double album in 1970, The Stark Reality Discovers Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop. A version of this music, adopted from Hoagy Carmichael’s album of children’s music, played during the opening and closing on WGBH TV’s Children’s Hour which was a precursor to Sesame Street. Although short-lived, Stark Reality enjoyed resurgent interest in 2005 when the Black-Eyed Peas sampled Stark Reality’s song “Comrade” on their Monkey Business CD.
In 1972, renowned blues composer and player T-Bone Walker invited Morrison to join his band during an engagement in Boston when he needed a rhythm section. This led to a yearlong European and Canadian tour, backing up Big Mamma Thornton and playing the American Folk Blues Festival in Europe. Later that same year, Morrison joined with friend and fellow Baha’i Keith Williams to form a loose confederation, the New World Generation, that wrote songs about injustice and the oneness of humanity. For six years they played gigs around Boston and spent months performing in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
In 1978, Freddy Cole, the youngest brother of Nat King Cole, invited Morrison to tour with his band in England and Brazil where Morrison met Helo Pineiro, the famous “Girl from Ipanema,” and even co-wrote another song about her with Williams. Playing with Freddy Cole eventually led Morrison to move to Atlanta where Cole had his base. He stayed in Atlanta for 13 years, playing and touring with Freddy Cole until 1983, and then joined the Paul Mitchell Trio, playing at Dante’s Down the Hatch and the Ritz Carlton Buckhead, among other Atlanta spots. During this time, he reconnected with Williams who had moved to Atlanta and led his own trio, The Brothers 3, also playing at Dante’s Down the Hatch.
The Golden Isles finally drew Morrison to its shores in the early 1990s, when Sea Island called him to be part of their house band. He moved here and played with the Sea Island band for two years before forming the Phil Morrison Trio with Keith Williams, who had moved to Brunswick. Patrons of J. Mac’s will recall them as the main band for the restaurant for many years.
As fate would have it, Morrison and Williams were invited to play extended gigs at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Osaka, Japan and the J. W. Marriott in Shanghai, China from the late 1990s into the 21st century. During breaks from those gigs, they made regular trips home to the Golden Isles, playing Jazz in the Park and other venues while here. In 2008, they had the incredible distinction of being asked to write an official song for the Beijing Olympics. They were also invited to play during the Olympics festivities, an amazing honor for American musicians.
Wanting to bring a taste of Asia back home, Morrison and Williams invited a musician friend they had met in China, Xiao Hui Ma, who was featured on the soundtrack for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to play with the Coastal Symphony of Georgia, an amateur group at the time. Later, trumpeter Trimmins invited Morrison and Williams to play with him in Honduras during his time there as a type of ambassador. These collaborations illustrate their vision for enriching the lives of different people by bringing everyone together. The Morrison and Williams collaboration essentially disbanded when Williams married Kaori Yamada, a Japanese woman he had met when playing at the Ritz Carlton Osaka and returned to California to care for his mother. Williams ultimately moved to Japan in 2012.
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As Morrison evolved, he focused more on his vision of world harmony, even naming one of his bands the World Unity Jazz Ensemble, which included members of a variety of races from America, China, Japan, and Brazil. He quietly tries to make a difference and continues sharing his vision of the unity of mankind through his music, such as his song about 9/11, “When the World Came Together.” These days, Morrison can be found playing with the Darien Cabaret on varied Thursday nights at The Studio in Darien, an intimate venue unique for a small Southern town because of its mixture of race, age and feeling of congeniality. The trio also performs during Wednesday Jazz Nights at the newly opened SchroGro Community Restaurant & Bar in downtown Brunswick. He also continues to play gigs at Sea Island, and in Savannah and St. Augustine.
Phil Morrison
Morrison’s beautiful music and inclusionary vision continues to call us to fulfill our better selves and to work towards peace, justice, and unity for all. The March 17th concert celebrating Morrison’s 90 years of a life well lived at its core is not really about him, but about the music he has given us all as a gift over the years. Please plan to attend the concert at 3:00 p.m. on March 17 at Ritz Theatre to join this joyous event as Morrison brings together friends and colleagues from different chapters of his incredible career to share with our community. Tickets are available now at goldenislesarts.org. It will undoubtedly be an afternoon of jazz to remember!
Guest submission by Richard Hathaway with Bonnie Springer
