Musician and composer Lawrence “Butch” Morris passed away on Jan. 29, 2013. Among his achievements, he was noted for his technique of “conduction”, a combination of conducting and improvisation. The image to the left shows the technique, using gestures to elicit musical responses from an ensemble of musicians, here in the piece “Possible Universe”.

A full obituary in the New York Times is available at this link.

You can sample Butch Morris’ conductions in the 10-CD box set “Testament” (CD3224, available for check-out in the Music & Arts Library. ) Many conductions are also available, in streaming audio, from the Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM), to which the Libraries subscribe. Here’s a link to “The Long Goodbye“, from Morris’ 1990 album “Dust to Dust” (Note: you must be a full-time Columbia affiliate to access this link).