Guitarist-Bassist-multi-instrumentalist Joe Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most impactful contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, William Parker, Matthew Shipp, David S.Ware, Evan Parker, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, John Zorn, Barry Guy, Mary Halvorson, Dewey Redman, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Lowell Davidson, Ken Vandermark, Ikue Mori, John Butcher, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, Joe Maneri, Joe McPhee, Joelle Leandre, Nicolle Mitchell, Darius Jones, Nasheet Waits, Fay Victor, Sei Miguel, etc. 

He is featured leading his own groups, as a sideman or collaborator on more than 190 recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, Mahakala Music, his own labels Riti, Glacial Erratic and others. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan. He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation throughout the U.S., including at the New School, Princeton University, Dartmouth College and Harvard University, New York University, Longy School of Music , as well as at colleges and universities in Canada, Korea, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Belgium, Latvia and Ireland. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Musical Arts Department at New England Conservatory of Music. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing, 2012). 

He was the recipient of the 2026 Arts for Art/Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.