Thomas Morgan w/B.Frisell, C.Taborn, A.Akinmusire, I.Wilkins, H.Threadgill, D.Weiss, G.Cleaver: Around You Is A Forest

Modal Jazz / Avant Jazz / Contemporary
premiera polska: 2025-12-15
kontynent: Europa
kraj: Dania
opakowanie: Digipackowe etui
opis:
multikulti.com * * * * *
Od ponad dwóch dekad kontrabasista Thomas Morgan jest ważną postacią kreatywnego jazzu. Jego dotychczasowa współpraca z Billem Frisellem, Jakobem Bro, Masabumim Kikuchim, Steve'm Colemanem, Craigiem Tabornem i nieżyjącym już Paulem Motianem dała imponujące plony.
Jednak autorski album, zarazem debiut liderski - "Around You Is A Forest", który dopiero co ujrzał światło dzienne bez dwóch zdań zaskakuje.
Thomas Morgan z ośmioma partnerami w niezwykłych dialogach, z których każdy miał własne, odrębne podejście brzmieniowe i kompozycyjne. Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, Immanuel Wilkins, Henry Threadgill, Dan Weiss, Gerald Cleaver i Gary Snyder to postacie nietuzinkowe, artyści w pełni samodzielni, nie idący na artystyczne kompromisy.
Morgan gra tutaj głównie na wirtualnym instrumencie strunowym, którego jest twórcą, nazwał go WOODS (Frequency Oscillates Droning Strings). Łączy w sobie brzmienia zachodnioafrykańskiej harfy - kory, azjatyckich cytr, cymbałów i marimby.
Subtelna i wyciszona muzyka fascynuje szlachetnością brzmienia i dojrzałością w kształtowaniu nieoczywistych form. Chodzi o stworzony przez Morgana klimat nowych możliwości stylistycznych. Mamy tutaj jakiś nowy ład, nowe piękno.
Tytułowy "Around You Is A Forest" otwiera album. Kontrabas Morgana opleciony brzmieniami WOODS. Ten utwór niejako programuje album, zarówno w sensie czysto muzycznym, jaki i jego przesłania.
Kolejny "Eddies", z Danem Weissem na tabli rozwija się w nieprzewidywalnych kierunkach. Gęsta siatka rytmiczna Weissa faluje niczym woda opływająca skałę w strumieniu.
Najbardziej abstrakcyjny "Dream Sequence" w swoim dramatyczno-onirycznym nastroju prowadzi nas w ostaje lasu deszczowego na Bali. Taborn gra tutaj na elektrycznych i elektronicznych instrumentach klawiszowych, dodając nagrania terenowe.
Najdłuższy na płycie, 16-minutowy "Through The Trees" z Geraldem Cleaverem za perkusją, z iście feldmanowskim poczuciem czasu trwa w nieskończoność. Ilość perkusyjnych detali, zawsze podawanych z czułością zniewala.
Zagadkowy i poetycki "In the Dark" to muzyka wypełzająca z ciemności. Flet basowy Henry’ego Threadgilla, z drugą, nałożoną ścieżką fletu zarejestrowaną bez słuchania pierwszej fantastycznie splata się melodycznie, rytmicznie i harmonicznie w narracyjną jedność.
"Assembly Of All Beings" z Ambrose’em Akinmusire’em to trąbka z adekwatną ilością efektów. Medytacyjna faktura tworzona przez Morgana na WOODS przenika się z urywanymi, szorstkimi, ale łagodnymi dźwiękami trąbki Akinmusire’a.
"Rising from the West" z Billem Frisellem to wspaniałe dokonanie - doskonale na siebie reagujących - improwizujących muzyków. Frisell za pomocą gitarowych efektów zaciera poczucie czasu i przestrzeni. Uwalnia narrację spod dyktatu linearności.
"Murmuration" z alcistą Immanuelem Wilkinsem, choć bardziej precyzyjnie by było z alcistami Immanuelami Wilkinsami - bowiem mamy tutaj nałożone na siebie kilka ścieżek saksofonu altowego Wilkinsa - dają złudzenie podpatrywania dużych stad ptaków tworzących na niebie falujące, zmieniające się kształty.
Album zamyka duet z 95-letnim poetą amerykańskich beatników, nazywanym "poetą głębokiej ekologii" - Garym Snyderem, łączy dronowe kaskady dźwięków przywodzące na myśl japońskie koto niespiesznymi mówionymi medytacjami Snydera. "Po co tu jesteśmy?", pyta Snyder. "Oczywiście, żeby tworzyć i afirmować taką sztukę".
Na takie debiuty pracuje się całymi latami i na takie latami czeka!
"Around You Is A Forest" to rodzaj tajemniczego muzycznego misterium, hipnotyzującego fenomenu muzyki!
autor: Tomasz Konwent
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Editor's info
The long-awaited debut album from bassist-composer Thomas Morgan is a lush, layered journey through ambient textures and open improvisation. Featuring an all-star cast—Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, Immanuel Wilkins, Henry Threadgill, Dan Weiss, and Gerald Cleaver—the record is both spacious and intricate, with Morgan’s own virtual instrument “WOODS” shaping its organic feel. The inclusion of poet Gary Snyder’s voice adds another dimension to this environmental soundscape. Around You Is A Forest is co-produced by David Breskin and Jakob Bro and represents a bold statement from one of jazz’s most revered collaborators stepping fully into the spotlight.
For more than two decades, bassist Thomas Morgan has been a quiet but vital presence in contemporary jazz. Known for his lyrical sound, grounding intuition, and deep responsiveness, Morgan has played alongside masters such as Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, Jakob Bro, Steve Coleman, John Abercrombie, Masabumi Kikuchi, Craig Taborn, and Joey Baron. Morgan has become a trusted bedrock for multiple generations of improvisers for the rare sensitivity he brings to every setting. Until now, he has never stepped forward with a project under his own name.
His debut album, Around You Is a Forest (Loveland Music), reveals a dimension of Morgan’s artistry long hidden from public view: his lifelong engagement with computers, programming, and hacker culture. The record is built around WOODS, a virtual string instrument Morgan designed in SuperCollider, an open-source software environment for real-time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition. WOODS evokes the sound of plucked and struck string instruments — West African lute-harps, Asian zithers, the Hungarian cimbalom, marimbas — while operating according to generative code that Morgan shaped into a living, evolving instrument.
Each track features a duet between WOODS and one of today’s most inventive musicians: Dan Weiss (tabla), Craig Taborn (keyboards, field recordings), Gerald Cleaver (drums), Henry Threadgill (flutes), Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet), Bill Frisell (guitars), Immanuel Wilkins (alto saxophone), and Gary Snyder (voice).
Morgan’s early experiences with programming began in childhood in Hayward, California. His father, a computer science professor, introduced him to games like Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? And Myst — and then taught him how to “look under the hood.” “When I asked him, he showed me how to edit a SimCity file in hexadecimal to increase city funds,” Morgan recalls. “Understanding how things were actually working opened up another world altogether.”

The Big Take-Over
Thomas Morgan is best known as a first-call bassist for a wide range of jazz and jazz-adjacent musicians, including Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn, Steve Coleman, Jakob Bro, and many more. But he has another side to him: that of programmer and computer game enthusiast. For Around You is a Forest (title taken from the first description in the game Adventure), Morgan invited some of his friends and colleagues to duet with WOODS, an algorithmic virtual stringed instrument of his own design – a project literally years in the making.
Morgan starts off the album by duetting with WOODS’ closest partner: himself. On the title track, his electronic instrument blips along like a cross between a mbira and a koto, as he lays his rock-solid groove and melodic improvisations on top. That sets the format for the rest of the cuts: WOODS presents a lattice of percussive, string-toned sounds, and the guests react to it. On “In the Dark,” Henry Threadgill layers flutes, duetting as much with himself as with Morgan’s electronics. Never one to do what’s expected of him, piano maestro Taborn adds lush electronic textures that challenge WOODS as much as compliment it on “Eddies.” Trumpet maverick Ambrose Akinmusire coaxes “Assembly of All Beings” into the ether by floating across the top of the structure. Fresh off his speedy rise to the top of the saxophone heap, Immanuel Wilkin takes “Murmuration” into another dimension with swirling sax lines that carry their own rhythm. Rhythm ace Dan Weiss brings the distinctive sound of the tabla to the WOODS party.
A pair of epics stand out on this journey. Over the course of sixteen minutes, drummer Gerald Cleaver rattles, brushes, and pounds over the crosshatch like the master of nailing a groove to free jazz he is. Frisell, meanwhile, blends a mix of acoustic and electric guitars into a tapestry that sits atop WOODS’ structure the way a blanket does a sheet, his fragile melodies and intricate textures emulating the work of Steve Tibbetts. Though coming from opposite ends of the aesthetic spectrum, these two long tracks really showcase the potential of Morgan’s vision: improvisation meets algorithm, with everything shaken down until it sings.
by Michael Toland

Jazz Trail
The open-minded, in-demand bassist Thomas Morgan takes an unforeseen and ambitious path in his highly conceptual debut as a leader, Around You is a Forest. At once intimate and spellbinding, the album features one solo performance and eight duets with a distinguished lineup of guests. What makes this project so remarkable is Morgan’s invention of WOODS—a programmed virtual string instrument that fuses characteristics of West African lute-harps, Asian zithers, cimbalom, and marimba. He pioneers this technique with sophistication and restraint, providing exotic yet organic foundations that inspire his collaborators to become co-narrators in sound.
The title track opens the album with Morgan alone, offering a breathtaking bass meditation that leads us into a vividly imagined forest. His resonant tone paints an enchanted landscape from which one has no desire to return. “Eddies”, featuring drummer Dan Weiss on tabla, is a rhythmic delight evoking Afrobeat and electronic music; its circular motion mirrors the flow of water around rocks in a stream.
“Dream Sequence”, with keyboardist Craig Taborn, unfolds like an experimental film score, layered in eerie dual-synth polyphony. “In the Dark” welcomes composer Henry Threadgill into a noir-ish soundscape of restless mystery, his flute and bass flute intertwining with Morgan’s textures. The 16-minute “Through the Trees”, with the resourceful drummer Gerald Cleaver adding color and vibration behind the drum kit, explores shifting loops and hazy atmospherics, building from enigmatic reverie to thunderous intensity. On “Murmuration”, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins floats in and out of focus through eight layered lines above a ngoni-like texture. This is the closest to jazz you can get—even if sometimes it sounds like an off-beat chorale of sorts.
Among the album’s highlights are “Assembly of Beings” and “Rising From the West”. The former, featuring trumpet master Ambrose Akinmusire, enchants with beautifully intoned notes, terse staccatos, and poignant outbursts over a drone-inflected steel-string zither tapestry. The latter, a luminous collaboration with guitarist Bill Frisell, takes us to another dimension within its spacious atmosphere. Melodious guitar fillings are discreetly shaken by electric distortion at some point, in a genuine communion between New York-based musicians who grew up in the West Coast. The album closes gracefully with “Here”, a poetic coda featuring Gary Snyder reciting his own verse in a calm, transfixing voice.
Still absorbing its many layers, I have no doubt Around You is a Forest is the work of a visionary—distinct, immersive, and profoundly original. Each piece feels self-contained yet essential to the whole. Traditionalists may balk, but this may well be the year’s most imaginative and best debut.
by FILIPE FREITAS

muzycy:
Thomas Morgan: WOODS, bass (#1)
Dan Weiss: tabla (#2)
Craig Taborn: keys (#3)
Gerald Cleaver: drums (#4)
Henry Threadgill: flutes (#5)
Ambrose Akinmusire: trumpet (#6)
Bill Frisell: electric and acoustic guitar (#7)
Immanuel Wilkins: alto saxophone (#8)
Gary Snyder: voice (#9)

utwory:
1. Around You Is A Forest 05:06
2. Eddies (Dan Weiss) 06:48
3. Dream Sequence (Craig Taborn) 06:02
4. Through The Trees (Gerald Cleaver) 16:07
5. In The Dark (Henry Threadgill) 04:47
6. Assembly Of All Beings (Ambrose Akinmusire) 09:08
7. Rising From The West (Bill Frisell) 11:00
8. Murmuration (Immanuel Wilkins) 08:36
9. Here (Gary Snyder) 05:29

Recorded October 14, 2024 (tracks 1, 2, 7), by Philip Weinrobe at Figure 8 Recording with assistant engineer Tyler Hicks; August 30, 2024 (track 4), by David Luke at Opus Studios; April 14, 2024 (track 5) and November 26, 2024 (track 8), by Michael Coleman at Figure 8 Recording; and October 30, 2024 (track 6), by Adam Muñoz at Opus Studios

wydano: November 7, 2025
more info: www.lovelandrecords.dk