Butch Morris was an American musician, composer, and conductor. Morris began playing music at a young age and, after time serving with the U.S. army in 1966, he forged a career as a jazz musician in the “new jazz scene” of Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s where he joined a community of innovative musicians that included David Murray, John Carter and Mark Dresser. Morris relocated to New York City in the early 1980s where he became involved with improvising musicians and multidisciplinary artists associated with the burgeoning downtown scene. Morris was a particularly skilled cornetist and he collaborated with a variety of notable musicians throughout his career. He is perhaps most well known as the creator of “Conduction®”, a method of “conducted improvisation” through which Morris directed improvising ensembles of musicians with hand and baton gestures resulting in arrangements and compositions that frequently defied categorization within a single musical genre. Morris refined the concept and practice of “conduction” through more than 200 performances internationally between 1985 and 2011. Morris performed at The Kitchen several times between 1985 and 1995, most notably holding the United States premiere of his developing “conduction” method in 1985 at a performance titled “Current Trends in Racism in America: (A Work in Progress)”. For more information see: http://www.conduction.us/