Rova Qartet on stage for jazz legend Butch Morris

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Akbank Jazz Fest hosts an exclusive night honoring Butch Morris.

Akbank Jazz Festival will be hosting an exclusive night honoring Butch Morris by performances of Rova, a Saxophone Quartet and their local and international guest acts. The San Francisco-based band will follow Butch Morris’s footsteps at Babylon with their project Rova Plus Presents: No Favorites! (for Lawrence Butch Morris).

Rova has succeeded to stay away from cliché sounds with improvisation and their free jazz based style. The band, who previously worked with various musicians from different genres such as John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Barry Guy and Mike Patton, will be joined by guest musicians on the stage.

Butch Morris, jazz composer and musician, is the originator of Conduction, a type of structured free improvisation where Morris directs and conducts an improvising ensemble with a series of hand and baton gestures.

These performances have received generally positive reviews and are often considered quite unique, not quite fitting into any one musical genre. Morris died on Jan. 29, 2013 at the age of 65.