Country: United States / Germany
Release Date: April 6, 1998
Genres: Conducted Improvisation, Contemporary Composition, Avant-Garde Jazz, Creative Orchestra, Third Stream, Modern Classical
Label: FMP Records
If you enjoy this album, please consider buying a physical copy to support the artist:https://www.discogs.com/release/1885602-Butch-Morris-Conducts-Berlin-Skyscraper-Butch-Morris-Conducts-Berlin-Skyscraper
1.Conduction #51, Berlin Basic Part 1 00:00
2.Conduction #51, Berlin Basic Part 2 25:23
3.Conduction #52, Dark Secret 36:21
4.Conduction #51, Berlin Basic Encore 01:14:24
5.Conduction #55, Distant Occident Part 1 01:17:59
6.Conduction #55, Distant Occident Part 2 01:48:42
7.Conduction #56, Beauty Sketch 01:58:32
8.Conduction #56, Final Encore 02:32:01
Recorded live at the 1995 Total Music Meeting, this album captures composer and music scholar Butch Morris conducting one of his most important improvisational experiments. Titled Berlin Skyscraper, the performance features a temporary seventeen-member ensemble and is entirely based on Morris’s original Conduction system.
The core of Conduction is collective improvisation. Musicians do not follow traditional scores, graphic notation, or fixed arrangements. Instead, every musical change is guided in real time by the conductor. This approach initially faced resistance from some musicians, including several established artists who questioned its practicality. However, Berlin Skyscraper proves that Morris’s method was not only possible but also capable of creating a highly sophisticated musical language.
Most of the musicians involved came from classical backgrounds. They had strong technical training, excellent ensemble discipline, and experience following detailed instructions. However, they were also accustomed to written scores and fixed structures, which made spontaneous improvisation challenging. A smaller number of jazz musicians brought improvisational experience, but they were more familiar with personal freedom rather than a conductor-led system. Bringing these two different musical approaches together became one of Morris’s biggest challenges.
The final performance creates an enormous range of textures and harmonic colors. The dense sound field almost reaches the limits of traditional recording technology. The opening sections are relatively simple, allowing the ensemble to gradually adapt to Morris’s approach. Through repetition and adjustment, the musicians learn how to build sounds that expand, overlap, and transform over time.
Morris did not simply ask each musician to display individual creativity. Instead, he studied their backgrounds, playing styles, and musical experiences. His goal was to discover hidden qualities in each musician’s sound—elements that rarely appeared in conventional performances—and combine them into something completely new.
After the first two sections established a shared musical language, the piece “Dark Secret” becomes a turning point. Morris breaks away from previous structures and pushes the ensemble into a deeper form of collective expression. Seventeen musicians with different styles gradually stop functioning as separate individuals and become a unified musical organism.
Although such a complex system could easily result in uncontrolled noise, the actual performance remains highly organized and full of imagination. The musicians constantly challenge traditional boundaries. Strings explore microtonal possibilities usually associated with wind instruments, while percussion discovers new overtones through unconventional techniques. Every section reveals unexpected textures and fresh sonic ideas.
During the creative process, musicians contribute their own ideas, while Morris carefully selects and shapes them. Ideas that fit the overall direction are developed further, while others are removed to maintain a clear collective focus. The final result feels spacious, detailed, and almost impossible to recreate through traditional composition methods.
Morris’s Conduction system transforms improvisation into a new form of orchestral language. The music becomes a structure built by many voices, like a tower created from different musical languages. Tonality is no longer a fixed rule but a flexible foundation that supports constant transformation.
Few recordings can capture the unique atmosphere of Butch Morris’s conducted improvisation. This approach remains extremely difficult to reproduce, yet Morris always hoped that more musicians would explore this path. Through Conduction, individual identities can temporarily dissolve, allowing musicians to create as one collective voice and discover new possibilities of musical expression.
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