Bio:
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 four CD's as a leader. A fall of 2011 release, The Carol Morgan Quartet CD, Blue Glass Music features Joel Frahm, Martin Wind and Matt Wilson. 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's performing ensembles include the Carol Morgan Trio (with Alan Hampton and Bill Campbell), Carol Morgan's Case Study--featuring Helen Sung and Mike Moreno, the Carol Morgan Quartet featuring Joel Frahm, Morganix (an organ trio with Akiko Tsuruga and Cory Cox), 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), The 55 Bar (NYC), The Kitano (NYC), The Bar Next Door (NYC), Blues Alley (DC), 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.
Press:
"4 1/2 stars" --James Hale, DownBeat magazine
"A sparkling, mature but under-recognized trumpeter, Carol Morgan fronts a stellar crew on her impressive fourth release as a leader. The organic interplay that she forges with her frontline partner Joel Frahm, a formidable and consistently adventurous tenor sax player, is sheer magic. A superb outing."--Bill Milkowski, Jazz Times
"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
“She moves from brassy assertive playing to great delicacy: Carol Morgan is someone to hear and to admire.”— Michael Steinman, Cadence magazine
“Morgan plays with beauty and command, illustrating something between hard bop and mainstream. This is perfect music for the jazz conservative looking for melodic playing. This is chamber jazz, devoid of Third Stream musings. It is as stripped down and cleaned up as jazz can be. The result is a fresh sound full of warmth and swing. Morgan lives up to all of the attention she has been garnering and then some.”—C. Michael Bailey, AllAboutJazz
"...Morgan shows time and again she knows how to construct a solo with choosing the right notes with the right accents, making one think she's written the book on jazz improvisation."—Pico, Something Else!
"Carol Morgan is a fabulous trumpet player with great tone and technique.”—Wilbert Sostre, Jazz Times
“The often discussed "talking" style of playing...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. ...Carol Morgan has clearly arrived and is set to take the trumpet world by storm."—Raul d'Gama Rose, AllAboutJazz
"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, Editor and Publisher, Volume 33/Number 142, Midwest Record
"...it's an excellent CD." --Jim Wilke, host of Jazz After Hours, Public Radio International
"Top shelf stuff!" --Elizabeth Farriss, Programming Director KEWU, Chaney, WA
"Morgan has the tone and technique of a former classical player (she is) combined with a strong and sensitive approach to jazz. The success of this group is based on Morgan's impressive ability, and also on the work of her band mates, who are great choices to be fellow members of this configuration. With the release of this satisfying new album, Morgan is clearly a new voice on the trumpet scene who will be worth following in the years to come."--Brad Walseth, Jazz Chicago
“Carol Morgan’s a contender. In a piano-less trio setting with Harvie S, bass, and Rich DeRosa, drums, Morgan carves out an intimate, rich trumpet sound on a host of well-crafted tunes. Morgan has listened to lyrical players such as Chet Baker and Art Farmer, and like them, she brings to the table a refined, nearly flugelhorn-like sound. I was very impressed!”--George Fendel, Jazzscene, Jazz Society of Oregon
"I hadn't heard of the trumpeter Carol Morgan until I received her trio CD Opening. The disc is a fine introduction. Morgan's crisply articulated, contained sound is well-applied on Horace Silver's Nica's Dream, which has been slowed down, and made more tender and minimalist by drummer Richie DeRosa's sparse mallet accompaniment A sprightly version of Bud Powell's Celia allows Morgan and bassist Harvie S to have some unison fun. Kenny Dorham's Prince Albert and the arrangement of Jimmy Van Heusen's Like Someone In Love are right out of the Art Blakey book. Eschewing showiness, Opening provides a clear picture of a focused improviser with a no-nonsense take on the language and repertoire of bebop." --Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
"Carol Morgan is a musician possessed of formidable technique. Yet, that technique never undermines the musical message. Her improvisations are filled with twists and turns. They are passionate, adventurous, and always display a keen sense of balance, structure and form. But most of all, she is just damn fun to listen to. I always look forward to the next chapter of her story!" --Joe LoCascio, Heart Music Recording Artist.
