Eric Marienthal w/ James Morrison: Why You Should Play, Never Practice

This conversation was recorded during The Jazz Cruise '24 and features an interview with world-renowned multi-instrumentalist James Morrison by Music Director Eric Marienthal. In this episode, Morrison discusses his unique approach to musicianship, the mental "switch" required to play multiple instruments at a high level, and his parallel lives as a professional race car driver and an airplane pilot who flies his own band to their gigs.

Key Takeaways

• The "Play, Don't Practice" Philosophy: Morrison argues that traditional "practicing" can lead to a mindset of "getting ready" rather than "doing". He advocates for a mental paradigm where intention causes manifestation, noting that once a musician has successfully played a note, they should never doubt their ability to do so again.

• Multi-Instrumental Mastery: James explains the difficulty of playing trumpet and piano simultaneously in two different keys; he succeeds by turning off the analytical part of his brain and focusing purely on the sound. He also reveals that the hardest part of playing trumpet and trombone together is the inability to move the trombone slide, requiring him to hit every pitch using only his lips.

• The 2000 Sydney Olympics Fanfare: Morrison composed and performed the opening fanfare for the Sydney Olympics, a feat that required him to circular breathe while holding a double high G for a massive global audience.

• Solo Big Band Project: James shares the story of a recording project where he played every instrument in a 17-piece big band (except for the drums, which were added later by Jeff Hamilton).

• Life in the Fast Lane: Beyond music, James has been a professional driver for Toyota in the World Rally Championship, a host of Top Gear Australia, and is a licensed pilot who regularly flies his band to tour dates.

• Innovation in Brass: A deep dive into the design of Morrison's custom E-flat flugelhorn, which uses rotary valves to produce a rich, haunting sound that mimics a French horn in its upper register.

• Listen to more episodes of Jazz Cruises Conversations on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. The back catalog contains more than a hundred interviews from past sailings.
• Theme Music: Provided by Marcus Miller from his song "High Life" on his album Afrodeezia on Blue Note.

Transcript

[Lee Mergner]
Hi, welcome to Jazz Cruises Conversations. I'm your host, Lee Mergner. This week's episode is number 99 in the series of talks from the sailings of our Jazz Cruises.

This conversation was recorded during the Jazz Cruise earlier this year and it featured an interview with multi-instrumentalist James Morrison by our music director Eric Marienthal. James talked about what it's like to play multiple instruments at a high level and speaking of a high level, he also shares stories from his experiences as an airplane pilot. I hope you enjoy it.

[James Morrison]
That is correct. So far this is easy.

[Eric Marienthal]
Let's see. Okay, I looked it up. You, unless I miscounted or it's not correct where I looked, but you have recorded, of course you've recorded hundreds and hundreds of records, but under your own name, I came up, I counted 34 projects.

Does that sound about right?

[James Morrison]
I would have no idea, so thank you for telling me that.

[Eric Marienthal]
Now, you know that you've recorded 34 projects under your own name.

[James Morrison]
Thank you.

[Eric Marienthal]
That's, you know, that's 34. That's amazing. That's enough.

[James Morrison]
Yeah, well, yeah, because I'm only, exactly, that's nearly one a year. To be nice.

[Eric Marienthal]
You've been nominated eight times and have won two arias. Is that how you pronounce it?

[Speaker 12]
Yep.

[Eric Marienthal]
And the aria is like the Australian equivalent of the Grammys?

[Speaker 12]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Eric Marienthal]
Not bad.

[James Morrison]
Thank you.

[Eric Marienthal]
You were inducted into the Australia Jazz Hall of Fame.

You composed, we talked about this, I'll tell the story later, but you composed and performed the opening fanfare for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

[James Morrison]
Yeah, I wasn't actually originally booked to play it. They asked me to write the fanfare for the opening. You can imagine being asked to write the fanfare for the opening of the Olympic Games.

It's a big honor. I'd love to, thank you. So they left me to write it with some instructions about, you know, certain things, but not too much, pretty open.

It's an Olympic Games opening fanfare. Like, you know, you don't need a lot of instruction. So I started the thing, if you've seen it and you can see it online, with this really high trumpet note solo that holds on and on and on.

You have to circular breathe while holding a double high G. And it holds on and then the other things gradually come in, but the trumpet is continuous for a long time. And I thought this will be very exciting, but I also had an ulterior motive, because when I handed it in, they said, this is great.

I said, by the way, you'll need to get someone to play that. It's one way to get yourself a gig, right? Write yourself into it.

No one else wanted the job.

[Eric Marienthal]
Or could play.

[James Morrison]
So I, yeah, I said, I can, they said, oh, well, you'd have to do that, wouldn't you? I said, oh, I hadn't really thought about it. So yes, I did play the opening fanfare too.

Someone said to me, weren't you nervous? Like, what if you missed the note? I just looked at them like they were mad, which I thought they were.

I said, what do you mean, what if I missed the note? Like of all the notes in your life you might miss, why would you miss that one? The opening of the Olympic games with a billion people watching around the world.

So I'm not missing the note.

[Eric Marienthal]
Something about the double high G aspect of that particular note might, may be the cause of the question.

[James Morrison]
Yeah. It's a funny thing about playing high on the trumpet. It requires a lot of energy.

It's like lifting something heavy, but that's not difficult, right? It's hard work. And I always make the distinction between difficult and hard.

Like hard is digging a ditch. You know what I mean? It's hard work and you sweat.

It's not difficult. You just keep moving the spade. It's hard work.

That's playing high on the trumpet. It's not tricky. It's not difficult.

It's not like playing the clarinet. That's difficult. It's serious, right?

It is seriously difficult. It's not hard work though. You see them, they don't even sweat.

But playing the trumpet is just hard work. So as long as you're prepared to put in the effort, it's not tricky or anything. And I think sometimes we forget that.

I say we, like brass players, forget that and start to think there's something difficult about it. Just hard work. I mean, have you ever seen, how you think about it too?

You see trumpeters, especially students, look up when they go to play high. It's like I'm going to reach for something now. I always tell them to develop a different mental picture.

Turn it on its side. Put the and the low notes over there rather than down here and up there. It's a human thing, a mental thing to think that things that are high are difficult.

So you put it over on the right, like a piano. Have you ever seen a pianist playing and go, I'm going to go for a high note? They're just over there.

It's no harder than over here. It's just a different place. And if you think about it like that and then put the energy in, because physics is at play here.

You do need more energy because you're making a faster vibration, that's all. But after that, it's not difficult. It's just hard work.



[Eric Marienthal]
Yeah, that's right.

[James Morrison]
Okay, good. I think we cleared that up.

People have been wondering how to play higher than trumpet for years. Done. Next.

[Eric Marienthal]
Okay, so I'm going to skip this for now. So this brings me to a conversation that you and I had. We didn't, last time I did this cruise, before the pandemic, I got to do one of the all-star shows with you backstage.

And it was later in the evening, I think we finished at 11 or so, and maybe 11.30. And so I know James, I play in Gordon Goodman's Big Fat Band. And we've been to a festival that James ran in Mount Gambier, Australia, for 34 years?

[James Morrison]
Yeah.

[Eric Marienthal]
Yeah. And so we went down and played, and so we got to do that. And we also played at the Tokyo Blue Note, and James was our guest artist, right?

So James had his trumpet and his trombone that he was playing. And so the soundcheck, I think we did six nights, I believe. And so we do the soundcheck, and James has his trombone in the trombone stand, the trumpet in the trumpet stand.

We do the rehearsal, soundcheck, go back, eat, and start doing the shows. And so did the shows. It was fantastic, of course.

The next day, we come to the gig, and we're setting up on the stage, and we see, oh, well, James left his horns on the stand. And I guess he's going to come get them. And we come back, and we start the first show, and James's horn hasn't left the stands.

And we introduce James, and he comes up and plays magnificently, as he always does. Same thing, third day, we see the horns as we're setting up. The point of the story is that Wayne Bergeron, great trumpet player, and several of us are thinking, how is it possible that he's playing like that, and not practicing or warming up, or he just does it?

And so, if you remember, I cornered you after our all-star set, and I asked you, how? How do you do it? And next time I looked at my watch, it was after two in the morning.

And you talked, and it changed my whole, you know, I didn't sleep that night very well, and I got very depressed. And they didn't have to pull me off the side of the ship. But the thing that has stuck with me all this time is that we talked about the concept of practicing.

And the line that I remember to this day, and I think about it every day, was you said, don't practice, play. You don't practice, you play. And the point of you, I think we talked about that double high G at the Olympics.

And what you told me was that when the person asked you, are you nervous about playing that note? And you said, no, it's here, I've already played it.

[James Morrison]
Yeah, yeah. And that's the real answer to the thing. I couldn't miss the note, because I said, by the time you heard it, I'd already played it.

And I mean here, I'd already played it before I put the trumpet to my lips. It had already happened as far as I was concerned. That's just the bit where you actually manifest it at the end.

And, you know, if you think about it, it's an experience that all of us have. You might go, well, I don't play trumpet or whatever, but we all do in some way. One of the things, one of my sons just proposed recently to his new girlfriend.

It's all very exciting. They're getting married in Brazil. We're all going over there.

But the funny thing is, I was thinking about that. It's the same. Someone proposes, because they want to marry the person.

The person says yes, then they have an engagement party, and then they finally have a wedding ceremony. And we say, on the day they take their vows and do all that, they're married, right? But that's the manifestation of the idea.

You don't suddenly decide to get married as you say the vows. You've already made the decision. You're all ready.

To all intents and purposes, you're going to be married, right? The moment you say, I want to marry that person, you ask them, they say yes, and you both agree, that's it. Then there's going through the motions to manifest it.

And so we all have that idea that, you know, a lot of things we decide, and that's what's going to happen. And then we do it. And yet somehow, particularly trumpeters, I don't know why, I shouldn't be giving you this free pass as a saxophone player, but trumpeters do it more than almost anyone.

They have this crazy idea that they're going to, they've intended to play a note, they pick up the horn, they put down the valve, and they go, but until I play it, it might not happen. I'm going, not for me. I mean, I've already decided that's what I'm playing.

It's already happened. The note got played when I thought, I think I'll play a G. And then after, it's just manifesting it.

And you know, the other thing I kind of have a little bit of trouble, not understanding, I get it, but it seems strange to me, is that if you can play a certain note, you can play the note. What's this doubt every time you pick up the horn? Well, maybe I can't this time.

Really? Does anyone get on a bicycle and go, I might fall off this time? Like, can you ride a bike or not?

If you've ridden a bike before, then just do it again. The same way. You know, and that's not ignoring the fact that sometimes, even like, you know, Hussein Bolt, the world's fastest man, sometimes runs a little faster than other days, you know?

Sure, we all have variations. But really, a professional musician can have a variation where some days you can't play the note. I'm talking, the variation is, oh, today it was three decibels softer than yesterday, or something like that, that no one can even tell.

Yeah, they're the variations. But the idea that whether you can play or not, that doesn't even come into question for me.

[Eric Marienthal]
Well, but there is the point about the physicality of it. If you play, yeah, if you play a recorder, you know, the recorder doesn't take much pressure. You know, it doesn't take much musculature.

And so, and yeah, so I can...

[James Morrison]
We're not going to sit here and malign the recorder, are we?

[Eric Marienthal]
No, that's a bad idea. No. Come on.

Please, you know, any recorder players in the audience room...

[James Morrison]
I know what you're saying, but that leads us into probably a discussion that's a little bit, as you said, we were there till two in the morning that day, a little bit big for the day, but just briefly to give you an idea of how I view these things, and then it will make sense to you, I'm sure. There's a lot of physicality involved, which is why it's so simple. No, because your physical body follows what you believe.

This is just my paradigm of, you know, this is how reality appears to me, and it seems to work, is, you know, your body does what you think. It's not the other way around. And so, you know, like, for instance, you want to move your hand, you move your hand.

You don't know how to actually send all the neurons and electrical impulses to do this. You just think, I want my hand to do that. And then there's a whole lot of automatic processes that take place to do that for you.

[Eric Marienthal]
Yeah, but if I think that I'm going to bench press 300 pounds and lay down and start pushing, it ain't going to happen.

[James Morrison]
Really? Exactly, but that's because you can't bench press 300 pounds. You recall I said, if you can play the note, I don't mean everyone here can just pick up a trumpet and play a double high G, you've never done it before. But once you've done it, you can do it.

Once you've bench pressed 300, then yeah, you should be able to bench press 300 anytime, if you can. You've chosen something there. I know you were being, you know, facetious, being funny, but you've chosen something you can't do.

When you think about it, most of the doubt that musicians have is for things they can do, things they've done before, particularly things they've done in practice. And they get on stage, you get nervous, I hope it works, you go, you're kidding me? You did it this afternoon in practice.

What, between now and, between then and now, you've somehow lost some ability? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It's a mental game.

That's why I follow the mental thing. If you keep your head straight, and the other thing is all this thought about getting notes and about physicality and everything is so low order. When we all sit in a room together, I always want to quickly tell you what the experience I have when I play for you.

And I put it like that because I'm sure that's how we all see it. You know, we play for you, but that's not the experience I'm having. The experience I'm having is we all get in a room together and we all experience the music.

I happen to be holding the trumpet. It's a minor detail. I could be sitting in the audience and having the same experience.

Like for me, we're all, that thing when the music gets you, gets you, gets me too. I just happen to be holding the trumpet. It's not a very big, important detail.

Can you imagine if actually being the one playing or not doesn't matter that much to me? How low order a thing like is, which valve you're pushing or how your chops are. Like it's so, it's like listening to a great speech in the Gettysburg address and going, I wonder what colour the ink is on his paper there.

It's like, yeah, it's, there is a colour. They did use blue or black or something, but who cares? It's not about that.

It's about what the speech meant, how it made you feel. And it's the same for me. The music is so important.

Stuff about the technicalities of the instruments whilst they're essential. I mean, if the ink wasn't on the paper, he couldn't have read it, right? It had to be there.

But it's not something you think about or concentrate on. It's just one of the factors essential to make it all happen. The important stuff is what's it about?

How does it make you feel? And I'm so wrapped up in and involved in how it feels when we're in the room together, experiencing the music. Someone said to me, how are your chops?

I go, what? Oh, I'm playing the trumpet. Oh, fine.

Like it's just not something I'm thinking about. But if you think about it, if you walk in there going, my chops are okay tonight, then you make that important. Yeah, you're going to have problems.

You're going to feel it.

[Eric Marienthal]
I mean, most of us mortal music, mortal human beings, sort of equate like how, if I practice for an hour, my playing is going to be the equivalent of the ability that an hour of practice gives me. If I practice for three hours, same thing. If I practice for 10 minutes, the same thing.

So it was until that conversation that I realized, yeah, you're sort of working the other way around, where you're thinking, hoping that one, two, and three equals four. And then, you know, instead of saying, okay, I'm going to be thinking about four, and let one, two, and let the body take care of one, two, and three.

[James Morrison]
Exactly. Yeah, it'll follow. It's all about intention.

It's all about why you're there. I'm not there to play certain notes, or to have good chops. I'm there to make that experience we have when we feel the music.

And the chops will do whatever they have to do to make that happen. You know, it's the other way around. The music itself causes the playing to be good.

Whereas we can get this feeling that, oh, good playing causes that fantastic feeling. I don't think, not for me, anyway. I start with the feeling, and that makes me play.

It just causes it all to work. It has to, because the music is a priori. You know, it's the main thing.

[Eric Marienthal]
So Randy Brecker's sitting right over there. What do you think about all this, Randy?

[James Morrison]
Randy thinks I'm full of it.

[Eric Marienthal]
He may have a question for you a little later on. So I'm assuming that at some point in your development, you did spend some time in the practice room.

[James Morrison]
See, we should have spoken about this beforehand. I could have saved you this embarrassment. No, I've spent a lot of time playing the instruments, of course, but I never went into the practice room.

I didn't ever do that. I was not interested. It didn't seem to make sense to me.

Just as a youngster, I looked, and for whatever reason, this is, I must have been a really, I'm trying to think of a polite way to say it, an interesting child. But I looked at it and I thought, hang on, practice, I know what practice is, like you do it with anything. You want to catch something and throw it up, you throw it, you catch it, you drop it, I'll try it again.

You do it enough times and you can catch it, right? Repetition is the mother of skill, is the old saying, right? Repetition is the mother of skill.

It's true. In which case, whatever you repeat a lot of times, you get good at. I have no problem with that.

Here's the problem. You sit in the practice room practicing a lot. What do you get good at?

Practicing. That's what you're doing a lot of. You get good at what you do, you get good at practicing.

And practicing is not playing. It's a different thought process. And I think, I talk to young people about this a lot when I work with them if they're nervous.

A lot of people, not just young, but have problems with nerves performing, I say, that's because you're doing something you don't do very often. You practice all year and you've got the big concert maybe once a semester or something, no wonder you're nervous, it's unfamiliar. If you played every day, you'd go, oh, this again.

That would be a big start to not being nervous. So I think you've got to play a lot if that's what you want to be good at. And there are different things.

There are different mental attitude completely. Practice is I'm getting ready to do something. Playing is now I'm doing it.

You want to do it a lot, not get ready. And you find if you do it a lot, you'll get good at that. And sure, someone could say, well, that's practice.

I'd say, yes, but it's a bit of playing attitude. And so I just never went in the practice room. I looked for places to play or people to play with.

And I found them or created them and just jammed a lot and played a lot. And people said, you've been practicing. I go, no, I don't like it.

I've tried a couple of times. I thought, wow, I probably should practice. I got into the room and I practiced some things and I get some exercises, whatever people practice.

I start, about three minutes in, I get the giggles. I go, this is silly. And I give it up and go and do something else.

[Eric Marienthal]
Well, on that same all-star set we did those years ago, among the amazing things that you did on that gig, also you sat down at the piano and you accompanied yourself, you comped for yourself playing trumpet and playing the piano. Now, most of you know this, those two instruments are in different keys. So the trumpet is transposed to a B flat and the piano is a concert instrument in C.

So if you're playing one song, the piano is, you know, if you're playing the song in the key of B flat on the piano, it's the key of C on the trumpet, you know. And so, and the same thing when you'll see James, you've seen him do this, if you've done it on the cruise, or even on this cruise probably. But like we rehearsed this morning with the big band, you're playing, you know, you're trading force with yourself playing trombone and trumpet.

I don't want to give away the, you know, the show tomorrow, but it's really incredible. Yeah, check it out. But what we don't realize is that, you know, at one point you're thinking about, you know, playing in this key and then this key, two different types of embouchures. And I mean, I guess it's the same thing that you're thinking about. But I mean, to take it to that level, to be able to, I guess, you know, be able to comp and play at the same exact time in two different keys, it just is, you know, ungodly to me.

I mean, have you, did you practice that?

[James Morrison]
No, definitely not. No, that's, yeah, I know what you're talking about. And it is, people think, well, sitting at the piano and trumpet is hard, but actually, your left hand's just doing what it would be doing if you were playing piano.

Your right hand's doing what it would be doing if you were playing trumpet. So physically, it's not hard at all. But mentally, you are in two different keys.

So that would be a real problem if you thought about either key. But here's the trick. If you don't think about either key, stop all that nonsense and just think about how it sounds.

Because when you play a D on the trumpet and a C on the piano, they sound the same. So instead of naming them and carrying on like that, if you just think about the sound, they're the same sound and it all comes together. And what I do is I deliberately, when I sit down to do that, it's almost like a switch.

I turn off that analytical part of your brain, that conscious part about, you know, keeping a track of what's going on, which don't we all know? I mean, all jokes aside, when you're soloing and you're doing that Eric Marienthal thing, you know the thing, you know the thing, right? Where he goes off, yeah, right?

He's not thinking about a whole lot of things when it's really good, which it is, right, all the time. But you know what I mean? When you're in the zone, when you're just playing and you're playing your best, like your best, you know what I mean?

Isn't it true that you go, I'm just not even thinking, I'm just here enjoying this music. You know that feeling? You just have to go there.

If you go there, you can play trumpet and piano, you can play anything you like. And the keys don't matter anymore. But if you come down to that level where you start thinking about everything, that would be a problem.

And by the way, when I do the trumpet trombone thing, the hardest thing isn't the keys or the ombres. Do you know what the hardest thing is? I can't move the slide on the trombone.

So I got to do it all with my lip and you'll get the trigger, you got two notes there, but basically you're doing it all with your lip on the trombone. That's the hard part. What I find funny is whenever you do something tricky or something, you know, that's technically impressive, mostly people don't know which part of it is hard.

You know what I mean? That's the hard thing. No one notices that because they can't tell.

It's playing all the different pitches on the trombone without being able to move the slide because I'm holding the trumpet.

[Eric Marienthal]
At one point, weren't you playing like a super bone?

[James Morrison]
I had a super bone with the three valves on it, yeah.

[Eric Marienthal]
And the valves were opposite.

[James Morrison]
Yeah, they're backwards. But again, you just flick the switch in your head and go, okay, it's around the other way, and then stop thinking about it. You'll notice here that I often say stop thinking.

I don't think much. I'm not sure if that makes me stupid, but it's a great advantage.

[Eric Marienthal]
So you guys should be familiar with this video, this YouTube video of James. You know. So if you pull up on YouTube, James Morrison and Big Band, this comes up, and it's a video.

I've got it on freeze frame on this freeze frame, but if you look very, very carefully, everybody's James.

[James Morrison]
That's a very good looking big band.

[Eric Marienthal]
And yeah.

[James Morrison]
Yeah, I recorded a big band. That's got, that's fun. You know what I mean?

Like play every chair in the big band. I don't play drums. My brother is a drummer, and so growing up, he was always on the kit, and there's only one drum kit, so I could never get a look in.

So I never learned to play the drums, but I played everything else. So I recorded. The first time I did that was with Ray Brown on bass, Hammer on the drums, and Herb Ellis on the guitar, and then I played piano and all the horns, saxes, trombones, trumpets.

And then it was, we had great fun. And then many years later, I said to Jeff, we've got to do a sequel. We meant to do it over the years, and then, you know, of course, Ray passed, and so did Herb, and I said, Jeff, we've got to do this.

Who are we going to get? He said, you can't go get anyone else. It's got to be the original band, and I said, well, I'm sorry, but unless you can have a seance or something, we can't.

And he said, no, no, it's just got to be you and me. So I put down the bass and the guitar as well as the piano and all the horns, and we did this thing, and I couldn't help myself. You know, Jeff has a great sense of humour, kind of.

And he gets mad easily, so I thought this would be fun. So when we'd finished doing this recording of me on everything and him on the drums, I put it up online, and it said, 17 musicians, da-da-da, and a drummer. But with the first one, of course, we recorded it the way you'd expect.

We put down the rhythm section, Ray and Herb and Jeff put down, and then I just overdubbed all the horns on it. Makes sense with the rhythm section, no problem. This one that way, I put down everything first without the drums, because he wouldn't have had anything to play to.

So then I took the files to LA, I'd done it all in Australia, turned up, and I was a little worried, thinking, what if this doesn't work? Like, I'm not aware of anyone ever having done this, where you record an entire big band without the drummer, then put the drums on at the end. I mean, as good a drummer as Jeff is, and he's like the best on a big band, is it going to feel funny?

Is it not going to sound right because it wasn't played together? Because a band follows the drums, and in this case, we didn't. So we got to there, and I'm thinking, I hope this whole thing isn't a bust, because when we record it, it just doesn't work.

So Jeff's there, he has a look at the parts, he goes, uh-huh, uh-huh, I said, so here, this will happen. He said, all right, all right, let's give it a go. He goes into the booth, I'm sitting there in the control room, with a little push button and the mic, I said, okay, you ready?

We rolled the tape, Jeff starts, and he's playing away with the big band, and four bars into it, he stops, and we stopped rolling, and my heart's going like this, and he says, he said, this band's not listening to me. And I pushed the button, I said, what's new? And of course, he was amazing, and he made it sound like he was driving the band, even though the band was already down.

[Eric Marienthal]
Yeah, but you can put that in reverse, and say that you were playing so well in time, the whole band, that it made it possible for him to sound good.

[James Morrison]
Well, you tell him that. I'm just reiterating what he said.

[Eric Marienthal]
So, I don't want to run out of time before we, well, we got time, we got time, but anyway, does anybody have a question for Mr. Morrison that might be able to, oh, here comes the microphone, does anybody have a, think of a question that, there's a few, have a few questions over, oh, where's our, our mic's coming, there we go, sorry.

[Audience 1]
Heard you in New Orleans a few years back with, and I expected Family Marsalis, who was wonderful, but we also got Family Morrison, I think everybody was just so amazed with the show you and your sons put on, so what are they doing now?

[James Morrison]
Yeah, we tour together all the time, that's my main quartet, my son Harry on the bass, and William on the guitar, and he's a great singer too, and we tour together all the time, so yeah, I'm going to speak to the powers that be about maybe getting them on the cruise with me sometimes, I think everyone would enjoy that, it is a family thing, and there, you know, Harry, young Harry, sort of is a devotee of Ray, Ray Brown, and he was only this big, I got pictures of him sitting on Ray Brown's knee, and he said, did he give me a bass lesson?

[Eric Marienthal]
But the boys, they came on one year, right?

[James Morrison]
They came on, yeah, I just as, guess, I just brought them on, I said, you've got to come and see this, I mean, right, you know, yeah, I said, you've got to come and see this, and see all these incredible musicians, and I think I snuck them on to, you know, that thing, like we should not supposed to sit in, I think, it was Conrad Paszkowski was playing the piano on the, the lobby thing, you know, they're there, so we just stuck them on, snuck them on there, and had a little play together, which was great.

[Event staff]
I'll make it over there.

[Audience 2]
James, I first encountered you about 10 years ago in Sydney, Australia, you did a Gershwin concert, where you played all the instruments, and it was just magnificent, it was unbelievable, I had never heard of you that, until that time, and I have a, thank you, a niece who lives over there, and she said, oh, this guy is fantastic, he's, he does it all.

[James Morrison]
Was that with orchestra, with the symphony orchestra?

[Audience 2]
Yeah, it was, yeah, with the Sydney Symphony, right, you played every instrument that night, it was phenomenal.

[James Morrison]
I had a lot of fun.

[Event staff]
I just hold it for you.

[Audience 3]
I guess I've chased music all my life, and had the opportunity to name drop to hear Louis Armstrong, and my girlfriend and I have some 60 years in college, so I just want to say, I've heard trumpets and chased it, but what you talked about first explains the feeling, there's a hell of a lot of people can play trumpet good and loud, but I'll never forget Edelweiss from yesterday. I'll never forget the sunny side of the street. You, Armstrong, Warren Vaché, and a couple others, infuse the melody with your feeling, as opposed to just blowing your head off, seeing how damn high you can get, or how far you can get, or how loud you can get.

So I appreciate it, and wanted you to know that. Now if you tell me everything you know about the flugelhorn, I'd appreciate it.

[James Morrison]
Okay, well thank you, I'm very honoured and undeserving to be in that company that you mentioned there, but yeah, it's, look, but what you say is very much what I feel, like I said, when I'm playing, it's about the feeling the music gives us. I still do try, don't we, Randy, play as loud and as high as we can occasionally, that's part of it, but it's not all, certainly not all of it.

[Event staff]
I have a question over here, and then I'll get to you over there.

[James Morrison]
Oh, the flugelhorn, I'll touch on that before we go, yeah, absolutely.

[Speaker 10]
I just coincidentally happened to have read that Buddy Rich felt the same way about practicing as you. He said, no, only when we play, that's my practice.

[James Morrison]
Wow, well that's because he was technically, like, amazing. So yeah, that's, there we go, it must be true.

[Eric Marienthal]
Especially considering he didn't practice.

[Audience 4]
I haven't been to Australia, we're considering it, but I like your places where there's a vibrant jazz scene. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, the Australian jazz scene and then where we should look for those opportunities?

[James Morrison]
Yeah, there's plenty going on there, and it's not too hard to find. Probably the biggest jazz scene is in Melbourne, not in Sydney, it used to be in Sydney, but that sort of happens, sometimes things change, but Melbourne, but every major city has quite a vibrant jazz scene, and there's a lot going on, so you won't have any trouble there. If you just, like, Google it, jazz in Melbourne, jazz in Sydney, whatever, there's some great clubs, and there are a lot of festivals, and yeah, so I do, I could spend all year without leaving Australia and be very busy, but then I'd miss seeing my friends.

[Event staff]
We have a question here.

[Audience 5]
Yes, you may have answered this before, but we just got here late. At what age did you realize you could be a professional musician and make your living that way?

[James Morrison]
Well, I turned professional at nine. I started playing at six, and seriously, I put together my first band, Little Quartet, when I was nine, and we had a gig, and we got paid, so we were professional, not by standard, just by the dint of the fact that we got paid. It was a dollar each, it was big money on Saturday mornings, yeah, playing at the supermarket, but I actually turned professional, seriously, playing in nightclubs when I was 13.

You can get into nightclubs if you're 13. You know how you do it? You wear a tuxedo and carry a trumpet.

You walk in, no one says anything, and I used to play, got playing with dance bands and things from that age, but what age did I realize I could be a professional? I understand the question, but I'd have to say it can't be answered the way you've asked it, because I never did realize I could be a professional. I just discovered I was a musician, and I do put it that way.

I didn't decide to be a musician. I discovered I was one, and I just kept playing, and the idea that you make a living out of it just had to happen, because there wasn't going to be time to make a living some other way, because I was going to be playing music, so yeah, no problem.

[Eric Marienthal]
So I understand piano, and then you wanted to play trumpet, and then maybe one other instrument, but I'm always curious about how it happened that you kept going and learned more instruments, and played more and more instruments. What got you motivated?

[James Morrison]
I just like the sound they made. I mean, who here has heard Johnny Hodges play the alto and didn't want to play the alto, right? So I, for some reason, was missing that thing that says in your mind, well, don't be silly, or you can't, or whatever.

I said, oh, great, I'll do that then, and I think it's because my mum said, oh, you can do anything, dear, and have mums say that to their kids when they're five. I just thought she meant it literally, but seriously, I'd hear an instrument, I'd hear someone play, and I'd go, oh, that's great, and so I'm going to do that too then. I want to make that sound as well, because all of the sounds, remember, are for a reason.

They're not an end in themselves. As amazing, as beautiful, as wonderful as the sound of Johnny Hodges' alto is, it's not the actual sound I was drawn to, it's how I felt when I heard the sound, you know what I mean? And so I wanted to create that feeling.

I said, here's another way to make that feeling, another sound to make that feeling, just like when I hear Clifford Brown play the trumpet, or when I hear Errol Garner play the piano, or so on and so on, and so each thing, I just say, I want to do that too. There doesn't seem to be any reason not to. You know what I mean?

Really, that'd be more the question, why doesn't everyone play everything? What, don't they like it? Do you know what, like seriously, that's how it would have looked to me as a kid.

I would have gone, what reason do you have not to play that instrument? That would be a more reasonable question.

[Event staff]
Eric, we have a question back here.

[James Morrison]
Okay.

[Audience 6]
Yeah, James, I'm curious, of the hundreds and hundreds of people that you've played with over the years, what was the most fun you ever had?

[James Morrison]
Oh, wow. With Eric Marion Thor. Hey, listen, it ranks up there, but gee, I don't know.

The most fun I've ever had? You know, that's probably the hardest question you could ask, because I have so much fun all the time. It's hard sorting it out.

I mean, the first time I played with Ray Brown, you know, a hero of mine, and that was that real connection to that whole history and a whole lot of musicians that I'd listened to. You've got to remember, I grew up in Australia, and the world was a lot bigger then. I mean, now people, the drop of a hat, you know, go around the world.

But when I was growing up, it wasn't like Dizzy came through every second week, or anyone, or you know, Oscar Peterson was, you go, I'll go down and hear him this week. Like, everyone was on record. You couldn't hear them live.

So to first meet these people or see them was something. To play with them was a tremendous thing. And I mean, it would be for any young musician to get to play with those people, but particularly coming from so far away and never having even seen them live.

So I certainly, yeah, playing with Ray's trio, that would rank up there. But you know what? I have, seriously, I can't put it any other way, I have so much fun all the time that I couldn't almost rank them.

You know, I mean, the most fun I'm ever going to have is at 6.30 with White Cliff. It's always just the last gig, you know.

[Eric Marienthal]
Well, you know, you talk about being able to do, you know, just wanting to do all these different things. I mean, even beyond music, you know, James is a pilot. He's also a race car driver.

He's also a competitive ocean sailor. He's also a, he writes books. He's written books before.

I mean, yeah.

[James Morrison]
Well, it's the same thing. If something takes your fancy and you go, well, that looks fun, although I'd like that idea of that, then, you know, I always loved driving things. So I wanted to, you know, when the band, when my big band goes on the road, I drive the coach, the big bus.

Yeah, it's too much fun. And also, I have a little bit of a modus operandi. Like, if you're sitting in a bus going somewhere, there's, let's say, there's 50 people on the bus, including the driver.

What you've got is 49 people being driven. One person's driving a bus. Which one do you want to be?

Do you know what I mean? I want to be the guy driving the bus, right? You know, people say, I just flew to Europe.

I go, no, you didn't. You were flown. It's true.

I want to fly to Europe. You know, they say, oh, we just drove down to Sutton. So they go, no, actually, someone else drove.

You sat in the car. So, I mean, my family all know, we go anywhere. It doesn't matter who's going and what we're in.

I drive. And it's not a control thing. It's a fun thing.

I want to be the one doing the thing we're doing. So same thing. But I got into motor racing early, and I ended up driving in the World Rally Championship.

And I was a professional driver. I drove for Toyota.

[Eric Marienthal]
And you had a TV show.

[James Morrison]
I had a TV show. Some of you may be familiar with a show called Top Gear. It was like an international show.

They had versions in many countries. I was a host of that. And I also had one in the early 90s before that.

That's a car show that I hosted. And the flying thing, I've always flown. And I fly my band around in Australia.

That's how we get around to gigs. And when we have a dep in the band who's not used to it, that's kind of fun. Because they're kind of like, well, I know James.

I've seen James on stage. He's flying the plane, really? So I heard he does that.

And you can tell they're a little bit nervous. And the guys in the band, they're dreadful. You know what they do?

They're regular guys. They'll sit there in the back. And my plane has four seats facing each other with a table in the back.

And then there's a couple of seats up front, a couple more seats down the back. And then we put the double bass and everything right down the back. So they're sitting facing each other usually, most of it's a quintet, sextet.

And the regular guys will get on. And you can tell the new guys are a bit nervous. And they'll pull out a magazine and be reading like this.

One of them will doze off. They're acting, right? They're playing.

We taxi out. And you know that feeling just before you take off. It's like if you're frightened of flying, that's the height of it.

So we get out there. And I'll just sort of turn around and say, everyone cool? OK, great.

Welcome. And then we get the runway and power on. And just after we leave the ground, you put the wheels up.

Now, in an airline, you sometimes hear a little bit of a click or something as they come up, feel a bit of a thud. But in a much smaller plane like mine, you know the wheels have come up. They're right under you.

There's quite a thud as they lock in. So the guys know this is going to happen. And the new person's relaxed by now, because everyone's just like right through the takeoff, just reading or do it on their phone.

So relaxed that the new person goes, oh, OK, wow, this is cool. And as soon as the wheels come up and you go clunk, all the regular guys go, what was that? They do it every time.

I turn around. I go, guys, come on. Because sometimes the new person really freaks out.

I go, it's OK, I think.

[Audience 4]
When's your birthday?

[James Morrison]
11th of the 11th. Yeah, 11 November. Favorite color blue.

I knew the hard questions would come eventually.

[Event staff]
Perhaps here.

[Audience 7]
Oh, yeah, I'm glad Eric mentioned James' book. And that's what I wanted to bring up too. Blowing my own horn, is that it?

Blowing my own trumpet. Your own trumpet. OK, it's terrific.

And I also, apart from that, wanted to thank you for being so loyal to Joe and I for our parties that you played in your family. It was wonderful having them. They're so talented.

[James Morrison]
Oh, thank you for having us so many times. We've had such a ball there. Yeah.

[Eric Marienthal]
We have a question right here.

[James Morrison]
I feel quite relaxed now because we've done the favorite color thing, so the hard stuff's out of the way.

[Audience 8]
Well, this shouldn't be such a hard one either. You mentioned your mom saying, oh, you can do whatever you set your mind to, as moms say. Were your parents musicians?

Was there such a love and joy in music in the house, whether they were musicians or appreciators of music?

[James Morrison]
Mom plays piano and saxophone, and she plays the organ in church. Dad's a preacher, so I grew up in the church, a Methodist church, and Mom would be playing the organ. My brother and I would sit either side of her on the organ stool, and Dad would be in the pulpit.

So she's very musical. She also ran a dance school, and we'd go down after school, have to hang out because Mom wasn't home while she was teaching dancing until like seven at night. We'd hang out and hear all the ballet music, which was great.

Dad's not musical. He loves traditional jazz. He likes New Orleans jazz, but he can't carry a tune.

He doesn't know what's going on whatsoever. But Dad's great with machines. Dad can fly and drive anything.

Mom's musical, but she won't get in an airplane. So we always joke, because I have a brother and a sister, and all three of us are musicians. All three of us can fly planes, all three of us.

And we all go, we must have got Dad's good stuff and Mom's good stuff. Imagine if we got Mom's fear of flying and Dad's musicality. We'd all be unemployed.

[Eric Marienthal]
Yeah, we have time for one more question.

[Audience 9]
James, you brought your sons on board, which has been very interesting. You're alone this year. Have they gone their own way, or what's the score?

[James Morrison]
No, they're doing other things, but as I was saying, I'd love to get them back on here with me. But yeah, we tour a lot. After this, I'm back touring in the US in about a month's time, and they'll be with me, and we're going all over the place.

Yeah, we were just in London. We played Ronnie Scott recently, and before that, we were at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. We had a concert there, so we'll be back.

The flugelhorn. All right, okay, all right. I presume you're talking about the flugelhorn, not just a flugelhorn.

Yeah, okay, all right. I went to the people who make my instrument, as those of you at the gig, I think I said this the other day, and I said to them, I want an E-flat flugelhorn with rotary valves. There's no such thing.

Flugelhorns are in B-flat, right? But E-flat means it's going to be bigger, because it's the next E-flat down, not the next one up. So it's going to be just more than 1.5 times the size. If you made it exactly 1.5 times a B-flat flugel, it would be an E-flugel. But it's E-flat, just a little bit bigger, so it's quite large, and puts it in a lower register. It's the same register as the Altos X.

And I just had this idea in my mind, what if you made a flugelhorn that was in E-flat? How would that sound? It'd be very rich in that lower register, and it'd be kind of a haunting sort of sound.

And I also figured, because it's longer and the bore wouldn't be too much bigger, that it would be different in the upper register than a flugel. Most flugels get a bit choked, they don't play them too high. But this, you'd be able to play high, but it would start to sound more like a French horn in the upper register, was my guess, just based on the physics of the instrument.

And I'm into all of that too, I design stuff and work with them on how to create not only new instruments, but to improve the trumpet, or to make it do something different you want it to do. So they made this, we drew it up on a bit of paper, and then I left them with it, and they made this, and so that's an E-flat flugelhorn. So it's bigger, it's not 1.5 times the length physically, because we rounded it around more, put more tubes in, but if you straightened it out, it is 1.5 times the length. The bell's quite a little bit bigger, and they put extra tubes in here to take up that length, and then the rotary valves are there, they spin. So even though that looks like I'm pushing a piston up and down, I'm not, it's just a lever that turns the valves on the bottom there. And a rotary valve, the difference between that and a piston valve, in effect, is a piston valve has quite a big dead spot.

When you push the valve on a trumpet, the sound stops fairly quickly, and there's this big dead spot where nothing happens, then it goes again when it gets to the bottom. A rotary valve has almost no dead spot, it just slices the sound from one note to the next. That has an advantage of a beautiful, sort of very clear articulation, which is why it's mainly used for classical music.

Nearly every orchestra in the world, the trumpet section plays rotary trumpets, not pistons. But it has some downsides for jazz, which you just have to overcome. One of them is the thing we do called half-valving, we push the valves down into that dead spot to allow you to glissando and things.

Very hard to do that with a rotor, but I found a way. But I have to just play a couple of notes for you, you'll hear what I mean by this rich, sort of deep sound, and then how it goes like a French horn in the upper register. You can hear the French horn thing in there. You won't be doing that with a regular vocal horn. But it does a lot more than that, but I'm still getting to know it, too. And that's an antique finish, they call it, with mother of pearl inlay in the valve.

[Eric Marienthal]
And there happen to be a few available at the gift shop.

[James Morrison]
Yeah, I was going to say, I'll be doing a flugelhorn signing.

[Eric Marienthal]
Very good. Man, well, we could go on forever, unfortunately. We are out of time.

[James Morrison]
Okay.

[Eric Marienthal]
Man. Well, you can definitely hear James with Wife of Gordon, as he mentioned, later tonight, and please help me thank the great, the great, the great James Morrison.

[James Morrison]
Thank you, and thank you, Eric. Thanks, man.

[Lee Mergner]
Well, thanks for listening to this episode of Jazz Cruise's Conversations. I hope you enjoyed that talk with James and Eric. Both of them will be sailing on the 2026 edition of the Jazz Cruise, which will sail from Fort Lauderdale on January 26th on the Celebrity Summit, with stops in Coco Cay and San Juan.

The lineup, which has just been announced, features headliners such as Piquito de Rivera, Chucho Valdez, Monty Alexander, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Anat Cohen, Kurt Elling, Benny Green, Jeff Hamilton, and John Clayton, as well as our hosts, Emmett Cohen and Katherine Russell. Sailing with us for the first time are Ron Carter, Janice Siegel, and Matthew Whitaker. And of course, don't forget our comedian-in-residence, Alonzo Bowden.

Go to thejazzcruise.com to learn more. The theme music is by Marcus Miller, from his song High Life, on his album Aphrodisio and Blue Note, and thanks to Brian Rachko and his production team for capturing these talks from the sailings. You can subscribe to Jazz Cruise's Conversations on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, so don't miss a single episode.

And you can also listen to our back catalog of interviews from past sailings. For the 100th episode, we'll have a very special conversation for you. Thanks for listening.