Morrison Creative Arts

Mike Morrison was born in Baytown, Texas and grew up in a rich musical environment that included gospel music and bluegrass. By his fifth year his own musical interests had him teaching himself to play the guitar and piano and accompanying himself and others in church, school, and family gatherings. He participated in structured musical situations participating in choirs, chorales, and small instrument groups in both secular and religious settings.

In junior high school he enrolled in band as a trumpet player. After 3 years of playing trumpet and with high school on the horizon his soon-to-be musical mentor, band director Dennis Eichler, convinced him to switch to the baritone which he continued to play throughout high school in marching and concert bands. In doing so, he was also privileged to participate in the stage band which for the first time exposed him to a whole new world of music: jazz. Eichler began an intensive four year musical relationship with Morrison that led him from Chuck Mangione all the way to Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever. He received outstanding soloist awards, region and area musicianship awards, and as a freshman in college won the guitar chair position in the all state jazz band in Texas. Dennis Eichler is just another incredible teacher that most of America never had the privilege of studying under. He currently is Department Head of Music Studies at Lee College in Baytown, Director of the Baytown Symphony Orchestra, Bayou Big Band, and a nationally know clinician and adjudicator.

After high school, Mike was again fortunate to study under another incredible music mentor, pianist and director Shelly Berg, who is now currently the Head of Jazz Studies at USC in California and is an IAJE legend. Two years under Berg found Morrison as the all state jazz band guitarist twice, and at eighteen playing with the San Jacinto Jazz Ensemble at the famed Montreaux Jazz Festival. Shelly Berg is not only one of the best jazz pianists in the world, he has literally brought the jazz idiom to thousands and thousands of young musicians all over the United States.

For the next twenty years or so, Morrison has branched out into several fields of musical study and found many avenues of expression for his multiple talents.

He's toured across the USA, Europe, and Central America both as a professional musician and a recording engineer.