Editing Van Morrison (section)

===Performance style===
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| quote=Van Morrison is interested, ''obsessed'' with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he's waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along ... It's the great search, fuelled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed.
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| source = –[[Lester Bangs]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/~murray/astral.html|title=Lester Bangs on ''Astral Weeks''|author=Lester Bangs|website=Personal.cis.strath.ac.uk|access-date=8 February 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090204014331/http://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/~murray/astral.html|archive-date=4 February 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref>
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Critic [[Greil Marcus]] argues that, given the truly distinctive breadth and complexity of Morrison's work, it is almost impossible to cast his work among that of others: "Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of rock & roll, a singer who cannot be pinned down, dismissed, or fitted into anyone's expectations."<ref name="MarcusPage447">Marcus (1992), page 447.</ref> Or in the words of [[Jay Cocks]]: "He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures—and even in that company he is one of the greatest—Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries— [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]], Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues—he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."<ref name="Listen to the Lion">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974140-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628235837/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974140-1,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=28 June 2011|title=Listen to the Lion|magazine=Time|author=Cocks, Jay|date=28 October 1991|access-date=12 January 2009}}</ref>

His spiritually themed style of music first came into full expression with ''[[Astral Weeks]]'' in 1968 and he was noted to have remained a "master of his [[transcendence (religion)|transcendental]] craft" in 2009 while performing the ''Astral Weeks'' songs live.<ref name="HPMR">{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/huffpost-reviews-van-morr_b_161308.html|title=HuffPost Reviews:Van Morrison—Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl|last=Rogogna|first=Mike|date=27 January 2009|newspaper=[[HuffPost]]|access-date=18 November 2011}}</ref><ref name="RSAWL">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/astral-weeks-live-at-the-hollywood-bowl-20090204|title=Van Morrison: Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl|author=Fricke, David|date=4 February 2009|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|access-date=10 November 2011|archive-date=31 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531091846/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/astral-weeks-live-at-the-hollywood-bowl-20090204|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2008/11/live-review-van.html|author=Lewis, Randy|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=9 November 2009|title=Live review: Van Morrison at the Hollywood Bowl|access-date=18 November 2011}}</ref><ref name="LATIMES">{{cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-morrison9-2009jan09,0,5414358.story|title=Van Morrison takes listeners on his spiritual journey|work=Los Angeles Times|date=9 January 2009|author=Lewis, Randy|access-date=18 November 2011}}</ref> This musical art form was based on stream of consciousness songwriting and emotional vocalising of lyrics that have no basis in normal structure or symmetry. His live performances are dependent on building dynamics with spontaneity between himself and his band, whom he controls with hand gestures throughout, sometimes signalling impromptu solos from a selected band member. The music and vocals build towards a hypnotic and trance-like state that depends on in-the-moment creativity. Scott Foundas with ''[[LA Weekly]]'' wrote "he seeks to transcend the apparent boundaries of any given song; to achieve a total freedom of form; to take himself, his band and the audience on a journey whose destination is anything but known."<ref name="Astral Travels" /><ref name="foundas">{{cite news|url=http://www.laweekly.com/2009-05-14/columns/van-morrison-goes-astral-on-the-tonight-show/|title=Van Morrison Goes Astral on The Tonight Show|date=13 May 2009|work=[[LA Weekly]]|last=Foundas|first=Scott|access-date=18 December 2009|archive-date=1 January 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100101142926/http://www.laweekly.com/2009-05-14/columns/van-morrison-goes-astral-on-the-tonight-show|url-status=dead}}</ref> Greil Marcus wrote an entire book devoted to examining the moments in Morrison's music where he reaches this state of transcendence and explains: "But in his music the same sense of escape from ordinary limits—a reach for, or the achievement of, a kind of violent transcendence—can come from hesitations, repetitions of words or phrases, pauses, the way a musical change by another musician is turned by Morrison as a bandleader or seized on by him as a singer and changed into a sound that becomes an event in and of itself. In these moments, the self is left behind, and the sound, that "yarragh," becomes the active agent: a musical person, with its own mind, its own body."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/05/listening-van-morrison-greil-marcus|title=Listening to Van Morrison by Greil Marcus|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|last=Marcus|first=Greil|date=4 June 2010|access-date=21 August 2012}}</ref> A book reviewer further described it as "This transcendent moment of music when the song and the singer are one thing not two, neither dependent on the other or separate from the other but melded to the other like one, like breath and life ..."<ref name="MWM">{{cite web|url=http://www.muddywatermagazine.com/When-That-Rough-God-Goes-Riding-Review-by-Will-Brennan.html|title=When That Rough God Goes Riding:Book Review-Greil Marcus|author=Brennan, Will|date=25 April 2010|work=Muddy Water Magazine|access-date=19 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120121215837/http://www.muddywatermagazine.com/When-That-Rough-God-Goes-Riding-Review-by-Will-Brennan.html|archive-date=21 January 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Morrison has said he believes in the [[jazz]] [[improvisational]] technique of never performing a song the same way twice and except for the unique rendition of the ''Astral Weeks'' songs live, doesn't perform a concert from a preconceived set list.<ref name="LA Weekly snags a rare one-on-one" /> Morrison has said he prefers to perform at smaller venues or symphony halls noted for their good [[acoustics]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archive.dailycal.org/article/105492/famed_artist_van_morrison_talks_about_musical_career|website=Dailycal.org|title=Famed artist Van Morrison talks about his musical career|date=30 April 2009|author=Lee, Stefanie|access-date=5 April 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105162345/http://archive.dailycal.org/article/105492/famed_artist_van_morrison_talks_about_musical_career|archive-date=5 November 2012}}</ref> His ban against alcoholic beverages, which made entertainment news during 2008, was an attempt to prevent the disruptive and distracting movement of audience members leaving their seats during the performances.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.ok.co.uk/celebnews/view/3368/Morrison-bans-alcohol-at-gigs/|title=Morrison bans alcohol at gigs|magazine=OK!|date=18 September 2008|access-date=25 May 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110322123911/http://www.ok.co.uk/celebnews/view/3368/Morrison-bans-alcohol-at-gigs|archive-date=22 March 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> In a 2009 interview, Morrison stated: "I do not consciously aim to take the listener anywhere. If anything, I aim to take myself there in my music. If the listener catches the wavelength of what I am saying or singing, or gets whatever point whatever line means to them, then I guess as a writer I may have done a day's work."<ref name="latimes9Jan">{{cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-morrison9-2009jan09,0,5414358.story|title=Van Morrison takes listeners on his spiritual journey|work=Los Angeles Times|date=9 January 2009|author=Lewis, Randy|access-date=22 January 2009}}</ref>