The Bay Area has a notable avant-garde jazz scene that has produced its share of internationally regarded heavyweights (saxophone quartet Rova, pianist Vijay Iyer, multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, to name a few). But sometimes the less out-there, though not necessarily stuck-in-the-mud-conservative, performers seem to get lost in the shuffle. Take guitarist Justin Morell. While old-school types tend to adhere to the theme/solos/ theme-and-swing-it format, and the très avant faction eschews conventional structure altogether in favor of spontaneous interplay, Morell takes the best aspects from both to come up with the original blueprint that his trio presents on Triorange, the 10 tunes from which walk gracefully the line between the delicate, cerebral "chamber jazz" of the avant zone and the more straight-ahead, blues-based styles.

While stylistically rooted in the classic bebop approach of forebears Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery, Morell is not a "retro" player in any sense. He's got the aspects of the style down pat (softly blurred phrasing, minimal low-end twang, bluesy undertones), but he uses its vocabulary in a most refreshing manner. He avoids the fleet, showy facileness of many jazz guitarists, never blitzing the listener with a flurry of notes when a few well-placed ones will do nicely. Likewise, pianist Leonard Thompson and bassist Todd Sickafoose let the music breathe, exhibiting an invigorating conciseness. Thompson plays with an endearing balance of poetic lyricism and bright simplicity, recalling Keith Jarrett and Vince Guaraldi, who composed and played the music for the perennial Peanuts TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas. For his part, Sickafoose subtly keeps momentum going throughout, engaging in some lithe exchanges with the others. The exquisite result heard on the album successfully pulls off a few neat tricks: It's mellow without being lethargic, sophisticated without being pedantic, and soothing without fading into the background.

Justin Morell is frustrated 98 percent of the time, and he's amazed the other 2 percent of the time. He is a jazz musician, a fourth generation guitar player from an entire family of classically trained musicians. When he is composing music, it is a labor of love that may have him locked up in a room, writing for hours. "It's a feeling of sheer amazement when it works out," Morell says of his music arranging. "I like the challenge of pulling sounds out of air and arranging music into a cohesive manner. When it works out and it sounds good, it's definitely worth it. "

"Jazz Ensemble," a piece Morell recently wrote for a class assignment, found its way to the final top five picks in the worldwide composition competition put on by "Danish Radio Big Band."Morell, a UCLA graduate and Cal State Hayward graduating senior, was the only American to place in the worldwide competition based in Copenhagen. The finalists, a Dane, a Canadian, two German musicians and Morell, will travel to Copenhagen this month to hear their winning pieces performed for judging by a panel of musicians.

Top prize is $10,000, with $2,500 for second and $1,00 for third. Morell spends so much energy and emotion on his compositions that he doesn't spare much thought in naming them. "I used to get stuck at the last minute, trying to come up with names for things I had written, so then I would just come up with a random name," he says. "After a while, I just gave up and named the music after the instruments that were featured in it, such as 'string quartet' or 'jazz ensemble.'"

One project that did receive a Christening from Morell was his recent CD, "tri(o)range". "I showed up for rehearsal one day in this really obnoxious, bright, orange-colored shirt," Morell remembers. "The piano player showed up, and he had the same color pants. We were walking up to the house from opposite sides of the street, and we just stopped and looked at each other, both of us saying, 'I can't believe you're wearing that!' So it just sort of stuck, and from that point on, our jazz trio was 'tri(o)range.' The band and the CD pretty much share the same name. "It's kind of silly, but people take jazz so seriously most of the time, it seemed like fun to do something really weird."

The realm of jazz is not usually associated with fun, but more with intensity and seriousness. What separates Morell's music from other, possibly more uptight jazz, is that he keeps a sense of humor about what he does. Even the most serious jazz musicians can be free and open-minded," Morell says. "But I also think there is 'real jazz' and 'smooth jazz,' which is really pop music. Jazz musicians struggle to find a way to let people know that their music is more creative, intellectual than the regular things that get thrown into the 'jazz' bin. "On a certain level, it's just music that is trying to just communicate some emotional feeling. It can be humorous; it doesn't always have to be mathematical or intellectual."

On the flip side of jazz composition is improvisation, known to be a rather liberating experience. Instead of perfecting note after note of music, jazz players will perform in a freewheeling, spirited style, letting the music choose the direction. Morell frequently enjoys taking part in these joyous expressions of musical language. "When it comes to improvisation, you have to let people play the way they are and not try to force them to try and sound different," he says. "It's sort of the same way it is with friends. Part of being someone's friend is that you just accept all the different parts of their personality. So in jazz, in a healthy environment, you are playing music with someone because you like the way they play."

There are jazz musicians, and then there are the greats. How does one know when one has "arrived?" "If you know you've 'arrived,' you probably haven't," says Morell.

At 30 years old he has already performed on several jazz CDs and television music scores, played guitar on a John Williams number on the "Catch Me if You Can" soundtrack, and put out several of his own CDs. He is earnest about not getting a big fat head over his success. "I'm thrilled. I couldn't be happier that I'm going to have something that I wrote be performed by a world-renowned, world-class jazz ensemble. Those opportunities are so few," Morell says.

Morell's father, a classically-trained guitar player, didn't raise his son on a steady diet of jazz. He opted instead to let Morell follow his own musical path. "My dad wasn't really my teacher," Morell remembers. "In our family, he's the first generation who didn't want to teach his son guitar. He wanted me to be his son, and not his student, which meant we got along really well. It was nice that the guidance he gave me was just in little pieces, and not forced down my throat."

As a musician, Morell has an opinion or two on the musical piracy controversy that is currently raging across the Internet battlefield. He concedes that for an aspiring artist such as himself, free downloads can be a good way to distribute as-yet-unheard music to the masses. But he points out that when the music plundering gets out of hand, the impact on the music industry may be stronger than some realize. "I think a lot of the really good records might not get made, because the record companies will not want to pay for them," he says. Why should they spend two or three hundred thousand dollars making an album if their profit margin isn't going to be as big as before?

"It just means that the records will be different, for better or for worse. Production of records may have to cost a lot less, for one thing. So if a band wanted to have a full orchestra on the album, it might not happen, because the record company might have to keep costs down. Actually, the jazz industry is not really going to be affected that much by (pirated music online)," reasons Morell. "Almost all the jazz artists I know release records on their own labels. You can get them online, but you won't find them in the record store. Really, the only artists who will be affected are the ones who normally sell 2 million or 3 million units."

"But I'm not disappointed that 'Uh oh, the next Brittany Spears record might not be printed in as many copies as before,'" says Morell with mock despair. "But what a lot of people don't understand is that there are little people all the way down the line that are part of the whole process. Some songwriter who can't make a living writing songs any more will stop doing it, and do something else that will pay the rent," Morell said. "Not to say that record companies are not greedy," he points out. "Their unwillingness to respond to people being angry because CDs are too expensive, for instance."

For Morell, there are other, more pressing concerns in the immediate future. The Danish Radio Big Band concert will be performed Nov. 23, which means Morell will have to dash back on a plane to the States immediately afterward in order to make his Monday night class. "Because, with the concert and all, I'll be missing class the week before, and it only meets once a week," he explains a bit sheepishly. Morell hopes if he wins the celebration will not completely throw off his class schedule. If he is extremely lucky, his professor might understand.

"[An] intriguing guitarist" - Greg Burk, LA Weekly

"Morell's work had the quality of a young star in the making" - Don Heckman, LA Times

"Morell is one of the best young and upcoming guitarist/writer/arrangers on the scene... one of the finest original ensembles I've heard in a long time." - Bob Comden, LA Jazz Scene