All Without Words Album Album Created for Non-Verbal Son with Autism

Music is considered to be a universal language, existing in every single culture across the world. Even for those that may struggle with language, music offers an outlet to communicate in a way beyond words. All Without Words is a new album with a jazz concerto for trumpet, performed by 3-time Grammy winner, John Daversa. His colleague Justin Morell composed a trumpet concerto as a tribute to his 16-year-old non-verbal son on the autism spectrum, Loren. This large-scale collaboration of musicians, composers, and artists honors the autism community.

Morell is a composer, guitarist, and professor from Hershey, Pennsylvania. He composed the album, and the trumpet concerto was played by his long-time family friend, Daversa, who teaches and is chair of the student music and jazz program at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. Daversa said being able to collaborate with his friend on such a special project has been a “beautiful experience”. The pair grew up learning to play music together and even played in a band together, so the collaboration was a natural fit. When asked why he chose to create this piece, Daversa spoke of his desire to make intentional music and how he felt a responsibility to make meaningful music if he was going to disturb the silence. And everything about this album was intentional.

Daversa spoke to what he hopes people take away after listening to the album, sharing, 

“I know for me it's just raising awareness and compassion to the fact that everyone on this Earth is having their own unique experience and experiencing their own gifts and challenges, and for us to look at each individual without judgment. And really, honor all of these things as a unique human experience here you know, that's what I want to portray.”

John Daversa, grammy-winning artist and co-creator of All Without Words album.

The album art was done through a collaboration with the organization, The Art of Autism, in California. The director of the organization was able to put Daversa and Morell in touch with talented visual artists who created the visuals to represent their interpretation of music. The team was in awe of the work by Angela Weddle in her piece as a response to All Without Words, so much so that it became the album art on the cover. Daversa thought it was incredibly important to “have people from the autism community be able to lend their hand into this”. 

Morell shared that he wanted to compose this album about his son and his experience of loving someone on the autism spectrum. “I wanted to acknowledge the world of autism because it's a world that we've been a part of like a family now for quite a long time…so I wanted to make sure that this piece was really going to be about just my life and my relationship with my son.” As the title indicates, the whole album is without words. Even the choir involved just sang wordless vocalizations, to honor the sounds inspired by his non-verbal son, Loren. 

Justin Morell, composer of All Without Word album, father of Loren.

As the title indicates, the whole album is done without words, Daversa says, “the choir is on there and Justin wrote it so that the choir they're not singing any words ever. It's all just vocalizations that don't have words” honoring his non-verbal son.

Morell explains his son’s involvement and the inspiration for the melodies in the album by saying, “I tried to find a way to involve him in the process of composing the piece, and so that's when I decided to sit down and just kind of record some of the sounds that he makes and see if there's music in there that I could build a piece around...I just happened to capture a couple of really great little moments of when he was doing some singing and some vocalizing and stuff like that and that little snippet of music became the theme for this piece.” 

Lorn, Justin’s 16 year old son. Loren is the inspiration of the All Without Words Album.

Morell explains his son’s involvement and the inspiration for the melodies sharing,

 “I decided to sit down and just kind of record some of the sounds that he makes and see if there's music in there that I could build a piece around...I just happened to capture a couple of really great little moments of when he was doing some singing and some vocalizing and stuff like that and that little snippet of music became the theme for this piece”

Morell expressed that his son Loren inspired the way he makes music by helping him appreciate the process and the idea of being in the moment. When we asked what lessons his son taught him, Morell responded, “I'd like to think that he's taught me something about patience and about appreciating small things and appreciating that particular time that he's in.”

Album cover art work done by Angela Weddle.

The relationship shared between Justin and his son inspires love, devotion, and patience. Profiles of the artists and musicians can be found at http://www.allwithoutwords.org/, as well as information on the composition of the piece. All Without Words was released April 20th, 2021, and is available on both iTunes and Amazon Music for download and streaming