Joe Morris

Racket Club is the newly-issued 1993 sextet date under Joe Morris’ guitar-isms rolling in among two saxes, two drummers and electric bass. This is super-fine, super-fun writing and improvising as this stellar six (Morris, Nate, McBride, Jerome Deupree, Curt Newton, Jim Hobbs and Steve Norton) run some ragged chase scene between left and right channels. Morris works a solo piece, “Pointyhead (Parts 1 & 2),” that is as lovingly detailed as a finely crafted work in wood or a poem. It is both somehow. This sextet form works heavy duty with Morris’ written lines and eke out a living set of freely-formed, extremely funky, brilliance.