Butch Morris was born in 1947 in Oakland, California and grew up in Los Angeles, where he began his career playing with people like Arthur Blythe, Stanley Crouch, Bobby Bradford, his brother Wilbur, Horace Tapscott. As soon as he moved back to Oakland, he teamed up with Charles Moffett and David Murray. He and Murray formed a fruitful partnership. His first "conduction" came in 1985, and is documented on "Current Trends in Racism in Modern America". He has appeared as conductor, composer, arranger or cornetist on over forty recordings with an impressive list of top American jazz musicians. Morris, invented Conduction as a means to unite musicians regardless of their technical, theoretical, stylistic or cultural differences. A club, record label, band and movement all-in-one, the Nublu Orchestra, the new project of Butch, is committed to developing and creating new sounds and music. The Lower East Side institution is comprised of talented musicians from jazz, funk, pop, fusion, Brazilian, R&B," but the music we make is none of these," comments Butch Morris. On the recently released self-titled album, Morris conducts band members from Wax Poetic, Love Trio, Kudu, Brazilian Girls and regular Nublu guests Graham Haynes and Eddie Henderson. The result is a free-form combination of avant-garde jazz, folk, funk and techno forming an improvisational hypnotic sound.
