Making It New

Joe Morris redefines the roles and rituals of the jazz guitar.

It’s Friday night at Tonic, the erstwhile kosher winery that now serves as a hub for new music on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Onstage, Joe Morris and Loren MazzaCane Connors swerve through an improvised duet with equal parts noise and finesse. The gig’s curator, fellow guitarist Thurston Moore, watches appreciatively from the bar.

"I really am not playing the guitar with any sort of method process," Morris says later, during our interview in Tonic’s cluttered cellar. "Once I got facility on the guitar, the only way to expand was to play like I was using my voice — like I was singing." The metaphor is apt, given Morris’ round tone and his affinity for curvilinear improvisation. He plays his Les Paul like a vocalist, or, as many critics have asserted, like a saxophonist. He’s engaged in a continuous effort to transcend the limitations of the fretboard.

"The language for this instrument is really new," Morris muses. "There’s a lot you can say on it that maybe has been said on alto saxophone, but hasn’t been said on the guitar." In the process of adapting this interdisciplinary approach, Morris has forged an inimitable, intricate style. He’s a technician, but not in the conventional sense. "Technique is not a correct way of playing the guitar," he explains. "It’s the assembled usage of the guitar."

While Morris has worked with such like-minded musicians as William Parker and Ken Vandermark, it’s within the context of his own groups that his concept really breathes. His new quartet record, Underthru (OmniTone), is a case in point. "It’s very down," Morris says of the disc. "I can articulate subtleties of swing on my instrument that I think a lot of other guitar players haven’t dealt with." His bandmates share this ability; consider bassist Chris Lightcap’s cascading whole tones on "Manipulatives," or Gerald Cleaver’s lithe drumming on the spacious "Remarks." On "Routine Three," Morris and violinist Matt Maneri recall Eric Dolphy with Booker Little. Such interplay provides the band’s modus operandi. "The rest of it," Morris explains, "is in process."

Joe Morris will perform Tue., Nov. 2, 8 and 9:30 p.m., New Market Cabaret, Second and Pine Sts., $12, 215-627-9801.