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Failed the jazz audition
PROG magazine has an interview with Steve Morse, highlighting the earliest years of his illustrious career.
But the music programme at Miami wasn’t ideal. I was very interested in classical guitar. I wasn’t that interested in the jazz department, because I was playing Jimmy Page songs and weird, teenage angsty music. So I didn’t know how that was going to work out.
When I got there I didn’t fit in with the classical people; I wasn’t advanced enough. And the jazz people were laughing when they saw me at the audition with my Telecaster – that wasn’t the right presentation. You were supposed to have an acoustic hollow body guitar with a pickup on it, like Wes Montgomery.
So they rolled their eyes and said, “Put him in the rock ensemble,” which was really a Latin jazz group. There were only six of us in that programme; guitarists like me that failed the jazz audition. So Miami started off really bad, but being around all those other guitarists, suddenly I could relate to them.
Read more in Louder Sound.
In other Steve news, he will make a guest appearance (along with Joe Lynn Turner and Bob Daisley) on Carmine Appice’s upcoming album Cactus Allstars Temple of Blues II, due out on Cleopatra Records in early April.
Thanks to Guitar.com and stevemorse.net for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
For all his virtuosity, I never really identified Steve Morse as a Jazzrock player – not in a sense like someone like Al Di Meola or Pat Metheny is (or was). Steve doesn’t really have the groove of a Jazz player, the drums in either Dixie Dregs or SMB never sounded jazzy to me, they are very much in a rock backbeat tradition. I also found his Southern influence – those joyful, major key melodies – much more prominent in his music than any jazzy schooling. There is a distinct difference for me between the – no doubt sophisticated and expertly executed – music of even the Dixie Dregs on one hand and acts such as Return to Forever, Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra on the other.
And the Steve Morse Band is even less jazzy than the Dixie Dregs to me.
I’d describe what Steve does somewhat ungainly as “very American instrumental Prog Rock with a shot of Southern Rock and another shot of New Age/Ambient Music”.
February 6th, 2026 at 13:45Well, dearest Steve, playing Jimmy Page songs is a bad omen for every young guitar player… Thankfully you ended up playing Ritchie Blackmore stuff!
February 6th, 2026 at 13:59I was a huge fan of Morse even before he joined DP, getting the bug when I saw him open for Rush in 1985 and then diving deep into his solo work and the Dregs. When I heard that he had gotten the DP gig, I was delighted, envisioning his chops getting applied to “Wring That Neck” and other instrumentals. Of course, they did not do “Wring That Neck” with him, which is a shame. While I have really enjoyed his Purple run, I have wrestled with what to think of his take on some of the classic material. Very simply, the man has his own style, and it’s so integral to his musical being that it is The Thing He Does, which means that I have not always enjoyed his non-bluesy feel on “Lazy,” for example. However, as I’ve had more time to reflect, I really do appreciate it. There are so many guitarists who can ably cover other people’s styles but do not have distinct styles of their own (heck, I am one of them) that I really do respect the way that Morse has carved out his own corner of the musical universe that is uniquely his.
February 6th, 2026 at 15:22Steve Morse, so much more diversity and melody compared to the many other new era guitarists from the later 70’s into the 8o’s. Light years ahead of them all. Cheers.
February 6th, 2026 at 20:39I totally agree with all the comments above. However, I remember Wring that Neck played in 2000 and in Rotterdam Ahoy Live, am I wrong?
February 7th, 2026 at 16:40Alessandro, thanks for the heads up! I will check that out!!!
But yeah, I was assuming that with Morse, the band would create more great instrumental songs, and they did a bit, but not as much as I would have expected. Ah well. I still do enjoy what they did do.
If any of you are familiar with the Hoffman Forums, they’ve been doing a vote-in for The Top 40 Deep Purple Songs. Very interesting!!
February 7th, 2026 at 19:03Mk VIII have played Wring That Neck once in a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm1hsLd-lsk
Jon, Little Ian and Roger played it at the RAH as part of the Concerto pre-set, but Steve (or any other guitarist for that matter, the role of the geetar being assumed by the violin and the horns) did not join them.
https://youtu.be/fBTc9kwHR80
I’d really like to see Little Ian play in a band with strong horns – he’s just the right drummer for it and it was part of PAL’s charm.
February 7th, 2026 at 20:00@5 DP had Wring that Neck in the set for the Orchestra tour in 2000 – but it was an Ian Paice showcase in big band style. Not a guitar/organ work out like in 1970. So no Steve Morse …. I treasure that version from DP at the RAH 1999 im
ensly.
February 7th, 2026 at 21:33Fusion at times on the early Dixie Dregs, influenced by The Mahavishnu Orchestra and the ‘country’ influence and not as classical in the early era. However after the demise of the 1970’s, more rockier and even a touch of the dreaded AOR with a vocal song or two for The Dregs. I much prefer Rod Morgenstein as a drummer to Van Romaine. Although Van is very good and his style suits the later harder trio aspect of the SMB. Always good to have a keyboard player and violin too, much more experimental The (Dixie) Dregs were. Once High Tension Wires was released in 1989, Steve took a ‘slightly’ different path bringing in two new members, Van Romaine drums and Dave LaRue on bass. Good in that it revealed occasional melodic quieter pieces, classical too and also ‘ambient’, if that is the word to use. Watching the Tumeni Notes live clip at the article linked here was a nice reminder of the band from 1993, that I witnessed in a pub in Brisbane. Of course Rod is the original drummer on the Tumeni Notes track and on the High Tension Wires album and Jerry Peek is on bass guitar excepting Andy West on one track. HTW was Steve’s first ‘solo’ album, contrary to what some media say. The Introduction 1984 and Stand Up 1985 were SMB albums. A great gig in ’93 and good vibes all round. Steve Morse stated at the gig that no promotor in Australia wanted a bar of him, (no surprises there) so they came out under their own steam and hired most of the equipment, excepting the guitars and effects no doubt. Van would have brought his own drum sticks, or perhaps not. Cheers.
February 8th, 2026 at 00:04Wring that Neck is a classic big band arrangement. I have often been surprised that Paice has not been involved more in that sort of scene at times. Phil Collins, Bill Bruford and a few others have ventured there a little here and there. Maybe there is too much ‘swing’ there for Ian, he he he. Too much swing I hear some query, too much is not enough! Well for a few it may not be, we have to keep some rock ‘n roll in there. Cheers.
February 8th, 2026 at 06:05Indeed, Steve says it in several interviews, when the Dregs became public people had trouble in categorising them. Not blues, not rock, not jazz – not even fusion, not exactly progressive rock either. And the same goes a bit for Steve as a guitarist himself. Love him or hate him, one has to admit that he has a unique personal style of playing and sound. I remember I was about 14-15, I had heard Steve only in Purpendicular (and maybe Live at the Olympia) and my brother came home with a Kansas (who back then I knew only by “Point of know return”) record, saying, “check the guitar here”. And I went in seconds “Hey, this is Steve Morse!” and I still remember the certainty I had, as if it was the voice of a close friend. I was not really much knowledgeable of music, neither had I much trained ears or whatever. The guy just sounds AND plays very distinctively.
February 8th, 2026 at 07:42@3
“Of course, they did not do “Wring That Neck” with him, which is a shame.”
When I saw them at the 2008 Montreaux Jazz Festival it was played. I believe it preceded Well Dressed Guitar.
February 8th, 2026 at 08:43Steve has one of the most idiosyncratic and immediately recognizable styles ever – he’s not even very good at copying someone else, he can only be himself. He is versatile as hell, but only within his own stylistic boundaries as set by himself. I think that likely limited his career as a session musician (plus not wishing to live in LA, Nashville or NYC) – he certainly had the chops and musical understanding to play on pretty much anything and he sure could have used the money and steady income a a go-to-session-guitarist makes, but his style and his heavily processed sound also made and makes him sound very specific. Too specific for many productions.
February 8th, 2026 at 15:32@3 Jim Sheridan and @13 Uwe
both well put. And it is a bit surprising that he did make 2 “Major impacts” albums, writing/playing songs in the style of players that had an impact on him. This whole idea is a bit questionable (it can be seen as “meh”…), nonetheless these 2 albums are enjoyable to listen to. However, I always hear clearly Steve Morse and I totally forget the guitarist that is named as the “influence”.
February 9th, 2026 at 12:03