Toussaint Morrison Likes Jazz Too

 

This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 06/23/25

READ THE COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

It’s the Afternoon Cruise, and we’re doing another installment of blank, awesome person likes jazz too. That’s a series where we connect with musicians, personalities and friends of the station who are big fans of jazz, but you might not know it from their own output. Tucson Morrison is a journalist, actor and a recording artist. This Friday, Toussaint is premiering five new music videos and a live set of all new music at the green room in Minneapolis. Toussaint, Congratulations on the new output and the show coming up on Friday, and welcome back to jazz 88

 

Toussaint Morrison  

thank you so much. Sean. Appreciate that.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

How are you feeling with this show coming up, and I’m sure all sorts of activities and things you have to finish. Are all the videos done? Or are you paying somebody to finish the videos at this point?

 

Toussaint Morrison  

Well, I tell you what the way I’m feeling right now. You what the way I’m feeling right now is great with all the sunlight spilling through this brand new kdem Jazz 88.5 FM studio, this is just great. This is beautiful. I’m feeling really great about everything that’s coming up, because there is just, there’s a lot of people that were a part of it. I’m sending out invites now to them saying, Hey, you’re on the guest list, and if you’re not going to come, please let me know. So I don’t rack up the guest list and scare Tanner at the green room. But I’m really, I’m really excited about everything, and it’s really, it’s really a collective effort to put all this together.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

You have always been great at the collective effort. I’ve always felt like there’s been a team supporting I’m sure there’s times where you felt like the one man putting it all together, but you have a great way of coalescing a community to support what they’re up to and what you’re up to. But I’m not here just to butter up to some Morrison. We’re here to celebrate jazz. In fact, before we did this interview, I asked you to share some jazz songs that you love. And no surprise, given your wide open ears and your eclectic energy, you picked two really different ones. First, you picked Four on Six from Wes Montgomery. This is like Wes Montgomery was not a big writer, but this is one of the tunes he wrote, and it’s gone on to become a jazz standard. The original version features Jimmy Cobb, Paul Chambers, Winton Kelly, and Wes himself on guitar Great. Wes Montgomery guitar solo, I’d say almost a textbook. Wes Montgomery guitar solo, where he’s deeply soulful throughout the song. And then about halfway through, he goes into this signature thing where he doubles himself on octaves, and I want to play a little bit of the last part of Wes Montgomery’s solo.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

All right, Toussaint. I mean, there’s so much to love here, but tell me what you love about Four on Six from WesMontgomery.

 

Toussaint Morrison  

Well, Four on Six, First John Leslie Montgomery, Wes. I don’t know how they got west out of Leslie, but apparently Wes was his nickname from Leslie. I was listening to this at my uncle’s house in it was, it was 2021 or 2020 No, it’s 2021 because 2020 we didn’t really get together with anybody, but 2021 people were sparsely getting together, and it was just me, my mom, my uncle and my aunt and Wes Montgomery came on, and it was just the perfect, it’s just the perfect song for that moment. But what struck me about it is it had a very It sounded like almost every sample from Tribe Called Quest like that didn’t do and it just, it was so like, Oh, this must be sampled somewhere. And I’m sure if I put it in, like a genius drive or something, it would pop up. But it was so reminiscent of the roots of samples. And I was like, there’s probably five groups that sampled this, or this, this, this, this timbre, like, it was so brilliant. And then the the Solo is like a familiar friend. Like, it’s like, even if you’ve never heard the song, you listen to it, you’re like, I feel like I’ve seen this scene in a movie somewhere. You know, it’s just, it’s familiar.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

I completely agree with you there. Where does this type of music, if you’re not at your uncle’s house, where does this music fit into your life? You have a very busy, active life doing a lot of stuff that involves audio. Actually, when do you find time to listen to jazz and when? When do you like it most?

 

Toussaint Morrison 

Well, I usually, and this is not to plug here, but I will turn on, I will turn on this station when I’m in my car and I just, I’m tired of listening to people speak like lyrics or anything like that. And then I’ll also, I’ll take breaks at a coffee shop while I’m writing, and I just can’t really be, you know, hampered by news or any podcast. And I’ll, I’ll turn on Wes Montgomery, or I have this playlist called morning a go, go, and there’s just jazz standards that are very fast paced, and I’ll listen to that. So that’s usually during writers breaks or while while driving.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

It’s afternoon cruise. I’m chatting with Toussaint Morrison, who, contrary to these terrible rumors, really likes jazz. He’s performing at the green room in Minneapolis on Friday night, premiering five new music videos. I asked him to pick out a couple jazz tunes he loves before we hopped on the air, you picked out a tune by the Stan Kenton. An orchestra from 1976 called a Smith named Greg. And this is really different than Wes Montgomery, because I think a four on six is kind of capturing one groove and riding it and doing everything you can on top of it. But a Smith named Greg goes a lot of different directions. It opens up all moody and brassy with some Barry sacks on top of it, and then Greg Smith on baritone lets out a great solo, and at some point the other horns come back into support. Let’s listen to that moment.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

You all right, Toussaint, big band, flavor coming out from Stan Kenton, what do you love about these sounds?

 

Toussaint Morrison  

Wjat I love about this. This entire song is how unsuspecting it is. I never, I almost, almost skipped over the song. And I think a lot of people probably would, because you hear it, and it sounds like the beginning to like a noir detective film. And, you know, it’s like, is this gonna just keep on going like this? And then Greg Smith, this whole thing composed and arranged by Hank Levy, was it just goes off into this absolute street car race. And it is so beautiful because it’s unsuspecting. And then And then, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, all of a sudden the band just breaks out. You get the horns, and it’s like, where were they? They were just hiding in the corner the corner the whole time, just like, looking at a bunch of rests, just my, oh, baby, you know what it is when you were in high school band, you’re sitting there for, like, you know, half the song, and then all of a sudden the French horn cranks out of solo. And you’re like, where did that come from? It’s such a beautiful thing. And I, I, I love that. And this was actually So Hank Levy, he wrote this. He was, he was interested in odd time signatures before Dave Brubeck time out. So you can kind of see this, this almost jilting song kind of break out of nowhere. It is, and it’s very like, like I said, it’s unsuspecting, and it’s just sudden. And that’s what I love about it, because, and now when I listen to it, I know that the bari sax solo is coming, but it’s also, it’s just, again, it’s, it’s great for the morning. It’s on my morning, a GO, GO playlist, Sean, but it’s I just, I love this song because of how unsuspecting it is. And I’ll even play it for people and just like, see their reaction. Just be like, I’m just gonna put on some music, you know, like, and just like, while I’m on, like, a road trip with my partner or family, and be like, I was gonna put on some music. And people like, Oh, what is this? And then, boom, just cranks out of nowhere. So I’m a real big fan of the song.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

You have great taste. Toussaint Morrison, I love these I love these tunes. I’ve loved four on six my whole, you know, jazz listening career, and it’s been really great to celebrate these things. And I’m so glad to talk to so many people who kind of come out of the woodwork for loving jazz, and you might not know it, and I’m glad to get to connect with you, but I did want to ask a question while we’re here about this premiere. So it’s at the green room. You’re premiering five new music videos, and you’re kind of launching a new album. Yeah, this time as well. Yeah. So were you like, I could make one video, or I could ruin my whole 2025 what I mean, just the deli trays alone has to cost a fair amount to do five music videos like, yeah. What prompted you to do something this ambitious?

 

Toussaint Morrison  

Well, we started off with me working with Max Schoberg and and I called up Alan Taverna, who has a lighting truck. And I said, you know, what, what, what could we possibly do if you had an off day, you know, like, how, how could we work together and, you know, get everybody employed and on that day and and make this thing happen. So we figured it out we were shut down halfway through shooting because we had an antique store over on it’s just off a Raymond in university, and giant, giant antique store. And we were at Modus locus expansion, and we finished up everything at Modus locust expansion, but it’s this old building, and the antique store was like, we’re closing now. And we were like, We got wait. We got good light. We’re still going, yeah, no, we we got like, three more shots. And like, he looked at me, he’s like, I can give you 10 minutes. And I was like, Oh Lord, and it was fine. And we were like, we’ll be back. And we figured out another time. And Nolan Morris was was so gracious in helping us with the first video. Once that got wrapped, I was like, if I can replicate this two or three more times, great. And so we were able to replicate it two more times, and then, so that’s three videos, and that was just the same crew hanging out. You know, I got a vision, and it’s in it. Some of them are pretty crazy, because Shapeshifter is based on the personas and masks that I’ve taken on while having a broken heart. And. Broken Heart part didn’t really come in until I sat down and looked at the songs, and I was like, these are like, songs over the course of 12 years that I wrote while I was, like, in a slump, you know. And it wasn’t just like romantic broken heart. It was like, you know, somebody passes away. Or like, you know, you you realize there’s a version of yourself that’s not no longer here anymore. All that being said, we recreated that three times, and so we had three videos. Then Chris McDuffie, who is always on the cutting edge of of everything, and I was, you know, mentioned him in our earlier conversation, could possibly, you know, even assists with, with, with some projects you might have going on. He was like, I was like, I want to work with you. I want you to direct a video, and I want you to incorporate your knowledge of AI into it. And he said, I’d love to. So he made this entire video, and it’s just me, it’s me. It’s incorporating AI into live shots. So you’re seeing like me, you know, there’s like a furry spider walking around everywhere. There’s like the the sweatshirt of the guitarist has like, you know, sheep on it. They start running around and talking to each other. And that was so that was the fourth one. And then the fifth one, I’d written a song, or I’d been writing a song, which was like a letter to my father. And I called up Harry, the editor for all of this lives in Chicago. And Harry is an amazing editor. And I said, I’m gonna do a live performance at George Floyd square, you know, just like singing over this track. And then I need you to incorporate all this footage from the uprising into it. If it works cool. If not, we’ll just, we’ll can it, and we’ll never talk about it again. And he put it together. And I was like, that is our fifth music video. And so, you know the three, yeah, the deli trays, you know, the we might have to, we might still be paying for those, but the other two, you know, they’re just finding ways to work with people and, you know, really amplify their strengths to the point that I could, we could just make it happen on a whim.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

Toussaint Morrison, we were talking many, many, a couple months ago, maybe more than a year ago, about charting a career path. And you mentioned that you got advice from somebody early on, who said, just keep on doing stuff, and at some point you’ll be the only one left. And that sounds kind of like pessimistic. It’s the exact opposite, because it starts with, just keep on doing stuff. Yeah, you are a man who has just kept on doing stuff and a high quality and stuff that matters to Minnesota and stuff that matters to the world, and I’m sure not every day is easy, and I just appreciate you, and I want to just make sure you know it’s important what you’re doing. And I’m so glad that we have a reason to talk, and I’m so glad you love jazz, but I’m just also just grateful that you’re making art and making things at this point.

 

Toussaint Morrison  

Thank you so much, Sean. I appreciate that, especially coming from you. That means, that means a lot.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88)  

Thank you. Thank you. Toussaint Morrison, good luck at the show on Friday, and thank you for talking about your love of jazz.

 

Toussaint Morrison  

Absolutely.

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