| James Morrison (musician) |
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Information About ™James Morrison (musician) |
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He performed the opening fanfare at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games , and is regarded as one of Australia's finest jazz musicians. ASSOCIATION WITH OTHER MUSICIANS James has performed with Dizzy Gillespie (the first Australian to do so), with Don Burrows as a member of the Don Burrows Band, and Ray Charles and B. B. King for a 1990 world tour. He has also worked with the Ray Brown Trio, Wynton Marsalis , Frank Sinatra , Cab Calloway , Woody Shaw , Whitney Houston , George Benson , the Phillip Morris Superband, and Red Rodney . In 2005, he was the guest soloist at the 150th anniversary concert of the Black Dyke Band . BACKGROUND James first heard jazz music in a church in Sydney when he was seven years old. He soon started to learn the Trombone , and by the time he was eight he had already given his first public performance. At the age of nine, James started his first band, a Dixieland trad jazz band. Within a few years he was playing professionally in nightclubs, and became widely internationally recognised when he debuted in the USA at the Monterey Jazz Festival . James joined Don Burrows Band and toured Australia for six years whilst his stature on the international stage increased. He graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium Of Music in 1980 , and the following year was appointed as a lecturer there. James comes from a musical family, and his brother John is a top-flight jazz drummer in his own right. In 1983 they formed a 13-piece big band, the Morrison Brothers Big Band. John and James have worked together on many other projects and recordings. The discovery and development of young talented musicians has always been important to James. He found his regular vocalist, Emma Pask, at a school concert, aged 16, and she has since then gone on to become an internationally renown jazz singer. James sponsors yearly scholarships for young musicians, and is actively involved with several youth bands. DISCOGRAPHY
INSTRUMENTS As well as playing instruments, James has also had input into the process of creating them. Yamaha has produced the ''YTR6335J Morrison Trumpet'', the ''YTR6335JII Morrison Trumpet'', and the ''TR14B4JM James Morrison Signature Mouthpiece''. A similar trombone range exists: ''YSL456GMA'' and ''YSL456GJII James Morrison Trombones'' and the ''48JM-GP'' mouthpiece. His latest instrument creation project was to work with a designer called Steve Marshall to produce the '' Morrison Digital Trumpet '', a MIDI wind controller that looks and acts like a futuristic version of a regular trumpet. This allows a trumpeter to play electronic sounds in much the same way as a pianist can play an electronic Synthesizer . TRIVIA James famously played the wrong Spanish National Anthem at the Davis Cup Final in Australia. Instead of playing the modern version, James performed the old Fascist anthem not heard since the Franco era, causing the enraged Spanish Prime Minister to walk out in anger. The authorities had sent James a recording of the wrong anthem to learn but managed to salvage the situation by quickly finding the correct one, placating the Spanish and allowing the match to proceed. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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