Carol Morgan is a jazz trumpeter, composer, author and college professor who resides in NYC. Originally from Texas, she is a Juilliard graduate who has worked with many remarkable teachers including Chris Gekker, Mark Gould, Ingrid Jensen, and Dennis Dotson.
Carol's discography includes three CD's as a leader. The Carol Morgan Trio CD, Opening, featuring Harvie S and Rich DeRosa was signed by Blue Bamboo Music and released in early 2010. Other session work includes solo outings, Classic Morgana and Passing Time with the Carol Morgan Quintet, as well as filling side-person roles on releases by DIVA Jazz Orchestra, Hawk-Richard Jazz Orchestra, The Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, NPR's The Engines of Our Ingenuity, Thomas Helton, Henry Darragh and Calvin Owens. As a composer she has been commissioned by DiverseWorks, the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble, the Arch-diocese of Houston/Galveston and St. Thomas Presbyterian Church, Houston. In 2008, Carol authored what is now a highly-regarded method for jazz improvisation--a textbook entitled The Practicing Improviser.
Currently, Carol leads her own trio with bassist Harvie S and Rich DeRosa on drums, Carol Morgan's Case Study (a jazz quintet featuring Helen Sung and Mike Moreno), Morgana's Organic Trio (with organist Akiko Tsuruga and Cory Cox on drums), and is a member of the New York-based DIVA Jazz Orchestra. Recent performing venues include Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola (Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC), Small's Jazz Club (NYC), Blues Alley (D.C.), the Playboy Jazz Festival (The Hollywood Bowl, LA), The Lionel Hampton Jazz Club (Paris), The Elephant Room (Austin), The Deer Head Inn (Delaware Gap, PA) and World Cafe' Live (Philadelphia).
Carol's goal as an artist and teacher is to help people enjoy music more.
Reviews:
"A few months ago, I was lucky enough to have attended a set by Carol Morgan’s jazz trio at the prestigious Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York City. I was immediately impressed by her confidence and maturity as a soloist and a bandleader. Her willingness to explore less-travelled pathways in her improvisation and simultaneously sound easy and flowing marks her as an important voice on the trumpet." --Joel Frahm, Anzic Records Recording Artist
"A real player with a big tone, Morgan leads the trio through a tour de force that unselfconsciously puts her front and center quite deservedly so. A mainstay in hipper New York jazz circles, this is another winning solo set from Morgan that should serve to widen the ripples from those circles a little farther west of the Hudson. Check it out." --Chris Spector, Volume 33/Number 142, Midwest Record
"...it's an excellent CD." --Jim Wilke, host of Jazz After Hours, Public Radio International
"Opening is an album so rich in the intricacies of melody that it never fails to surprise at every turn. The often discussed "talking" style of playing attributed to men like Shaw, as well as trumpet players such as Louis Armstrong, Jabbo Smith, Bubber Miley and Rex Stewart, finds its new epitome in Carol Morgan. Her "trumpet voice" is raw and husky, and it often slips into a velvety intonation that is so seductive it's impossible to resist. It stuns the inner ear into a kind of rapture that comes from being completely captivated by her sound. The notes she plays—no matter how brisk the pace of the song is—are flawless. And because she has an uncanny sense of finding the right note to begin with, her phrases are brilliantly crafted and become lines that are as narrative in a riveting way as they are lyrical.
With this album, Carol Morgan has clearly arrived and is set to take the trumpet world by storm."
--Raul d'Gama Rose, allaboutjazz
www.carolmorganmusic.com
