James Morrison

Biography

James has played with all-time greats including Dizzy Gillespie, B.B. King, and Wynton Marsalis and his stellar career spans several decades.

Besides the trumpet, James plays trombone, euphonium, flugel horn, tuba, saxophone, and the piano and is truly a genius in the world of jazz.

His career is as diverse as it is stellar. He mixes recording and performing with his role as head of Morrison Records, and more recently, has ventured into storytelling with the release of his book, ‘James Morrison: Blowing My Own Trumpet’.

He’s become a world jazz legend in his own lifetime; is yet to turn 50; is idol to fans in more countries than most people can name, regularly gives live performances in most of them; has co-performed and co-recorded in the last 23 years with many of the world’s truly great jazz personalities and is respected by all of them for his talent.

James has also completed six Royal Command performances for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal Family, and has played to Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush at National receptions in Canberra.

His greatest audience, of several hundred million, was in 2000 when he was commissioned to compose and perform the Opening Fanfare of the Olympic Games in Sydney.

When not writing film scores, composing or being patron of several youth orchestras, James relaxes in some fairly unconventional ways for a musician – competing in triathlons, abseiling, flying his private plane or driving in rally championships. His love of cars is well known, he was host of the national TV program ‘Behind the Wheel’.

With interests so broad and a career so filled with highlights it seems that he has done just about everything anyone could want.

With a career so filled with highlights it seems that he has done just about everything anyone could want. When asked, “what is there left to do?”, his reply is simply “this is just the warm up!”.

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