LEE MORGAN (1938-1972): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, composer, ensemble leader, and teacher

SOUND PROJECTIONS

AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

EDITOR:  KOFI  NATAMBU

  SPRING, 2016

  VOLUME TWO           NUMBER THREE

WAYNE SHORTER

Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of: 
 
LEO SMITH
March 26-April 1

AHMAD JAMAL
April 2-8
 
DIONNE WARWICK
April 9-15

LEE MORGAN
April 16-22

BILL DIXON
April 23-29

SAM COOKE
April 30-May 6

MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS
May 7-13

BILLY HARPER
May 14-20

SISTER ROSETTA THARPE
May 21-27

QUINCY JONES
May 28-June 3

BESSIE SMITH
June 4-10

ROBERT JOHNSON
June 11-17



http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lee-morgan-mn0000226380/biography 


LEE MORGAN
(1938-1972)

Artist Biography by Steve Huey

 

A cornerstone of the Blue Note label roster prior to his tragic demise, Lee Morgan was one of hard bop's greatest trumpeters, and indeed one of the finest of the '60s. An all-around master of his instrument modeled after Clifford Brown, Morgan boasted an effortless, virtuosic technique and a full, supple, muscular tone that was just as powerful in the high register. His playing was always emotionally charged, regardless of the specific mood: cocky and exuberant on up-tempo groovers, blistering on bop-oriented technical showcases, sweet and sensitive on ballads. In his early days as a teen prodigy, Morgan was a busy soloist with a taste for long, graceful lines, and honed his personal style while serving an apprenticeship in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. As his original compositions began to take in elements of blues and R&B, he made greater use of space and developed an infectiously funky rhythmic sense. He also found ways to mimic human vocal inflections by stuttering, slurring his articulations, and employing half-valved sound effects. Toward the end of his career, Morgan was increasingly moving into modal music and free bop, hinting at the avant-garde but remaining grounded in tradition. He had already overcome a severe drug addiction, but sadly, he would not live to continue his musical growth; he was shot to death by his common-law wife in 1972. 

 

Edward Lee Morgan was born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1938. He grew up a jazz lover, and his sister apparently gave him his first trumpet at age 14. He took private lessons, developing rapidly, and continued his studies at Mastbaum High School. By the time he was 15, he was already performing professionally on the weekends, co-leading a group with bassist Spanky DeBrest. Morgan also participated in weekly workshops that gave him the chance to meet the likes of Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and his idol Clifford Brown. After graduating from high school in 1956, Morgan -- along with DeBrest -- got the chance to perform with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers when they swung through Philadelphia. Not long after, Dizzy Gillespie hired Morgan to replace Joe Gordon in his big band, and afforded the talented youngster plenty of opportunities to solo, often spotlighting him on the Gillespie signature piece "A Night in Tunisia." Clifford Brown's death in a car crash in June 1956 sparked a search for his heir apparent, and the precocious Morgan seemed a likely candidate to many; accordingly, he soon found himself in great demand as a recording artist. His first session as a leader was cut for Blue Note in November 1956, and over the next few months he recorded for Savoy and Specialty as well, often working closely with Hank Mobley or Benny Golson. Later in 1957, he performed as a sideman on John Coltrane's classic Blue Train, as well as with Jimmy Smith. 

 

 

Morgan's early sessions showed him to be a gifted technician who had his influences down pat, but subsequent dates found him coming into his own as a distinctive, original stylist. That was most apparent on the Blue Note classic Candy, a warm standards album completed in 1958 and released to great acclaim. Still only 19, Morgan's playing was still imbued with youthful enthusiasm, but he was also synthesizing his influences into an original sound of his own. Also in 1958, Gillespie's big band broke up, and Morgan soon joined the third version of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, which debuted on the classic Moanin' album later that year. As a leader, Morgan recorded a pair of albums for Vee Jay in 1960, Here's Lee Morgan and Expoobident, and cut another for Blue Note that year, Leeway, with backing by many of the Jazz Messengers. None managed to measure up to Candy, and Morgan, grappling with heroin addiction, wound up leaving the Jazz Messengers in 1961. He returned to his hometown of Philadelphia to kick the habit, and spent most of the next two years away from music, working occasionally with saxophonist Jimmy Heath on a local basis. His replacement in the Jazz Messengers was Freddie Hubbard, who would also become one of the top hard bop trumpeters of the '60s. 

 

 

Morgan returned to New York in late 1963, and recorded with Blue Note avant-gardist Grachan Moncur on the trombonist's debut Evolution. He then recorded a comeback LP for Blue Note called The Sidewinder, prominently featuring the up-and-coming Joe Henderson. The Morgan-composed title track was a funky, danceable groover that drew from soul-jazz, Latin boogaloo, blues, and R&B in addition to Morgan's trademark hard bop. It was rather unlike anything else he'd cut, and it became a left-field hit in 1964; edited down to a 45 rpm single, it inched onto the lower reaches of the pop charts, and was licensed for use in a high-profile automobile ad campaign. Its success helped push The Sidewinder into the Top 25 of the pop LP charts, and the Top Ten on the R&B listing. Sales were brisk enough to revive the financially struggling Blue Note label, and likely kept it from bankruptcy; it also led to numerous "Sidewinder"-style grooves popping up on other Blue Note artists' albums. By the time "The Sidewinder" became a phenomenon, Morgan had rejoined the Jazz Messengers, where he would remain until 1965; there he solidified a long-standing partnership with saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

 

 

Morgan followed the most crucial recording of his career with the excellent, more abstract Search for the New Land, which was cut in early 1964, before "The Sidewinder" hit. An advanced modal bop session called Tom Cat was also recorded shortly thereafter, but both were shelved in hopes of scoring another "Sidewinder." Accordingly, Morgan re-entered the studio in early 1965 to cut The Rumproller, whose Andrew Hill-penned title cut worked territory that was highly similar to Morgan's breakout hit. Commercial lightning didn't strike twice, but Morgan continued to record prolifically through 1965, cutting excellent sessions like The Gigolo, Cornbread, and the unissued Infinity. The Gigolo introduced one of Morgan's best-known originals, the bluesy "Speedball," while the classic Cornbread featured his ballad masterpiece "Ceora." Search for the New Land was finally issued in 1966, and it achieved highly respectable sales, reaching the Top 20 of the R&B album charts; both Cornbread and The Gigolo would sell well among jazz audiences when they were released in 1967 and 1968, respectively.

By the time Morgan completed those albums, he had left the Jazz Messengers to begin leading his own groups outside the studio. He was also appearing frequently as a sideman on other Blue Note releases, working most often with tenorman Hank Mobley. Morgan was extraordinarily prolific over 1966-1968, cutting around eight albums' worth of material (though not all of it was released at the time). Highlights included Delightfulee, The Procrastinator, and the decent-selling Caramba!, which nearly made the Top 40 of the R&B album chart. His compositions were increasingly modal and free-form, stretching the boundaries of hard bop; however, his funkier instincts were still evident as well, shifting gradually from boogaloo to early electrified fusion. Morgan's recording pace tailed off at the end of the '60s, but he continued to tour with a regular working group that prominently featured saxophonist Bennie Maupin. This band's lengthy modal explorations were documented on the double LP Live at the Lighthouse, recorded in Los Angeles in July 1970; it was later reissued as a three-CD set with a generous amount of extra material. 

  Morgan led what turned out to be the last session of his life in September 1971. On February 19, 1972, Morgan was performing at the New York club Slug's when he was shot and killed by his common-law wife, Helen More. Accounts of exactly what happened vary; whether they argued over drugs or Morgan's fidelity, whether she shot him outside the club or up on the bandstand in front of the audience, jazz lost a major talent. Despite his extensive recorded legacy, Morgan was only 33 years old. Many of his unreleased Blue Note sessions began to appear in the early '80s, and his critical standing has hardly diminished a whit.

 

http://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/leemorgan


LEE MORGAN
(b. July 10, 1938--d. February 19, 1972)

 

Morgan was a jazz prodigy, joining the Dizzy Gillespie big band at 18, remaining a member for two years. Beginning in 1956, he began recording as a leader, mainly for the Blue Note label, eventually he recorded twenty-five albums for the company. Morgan's principal influence as a player was Clifford Brown, having had direct contact with him before Brown's premature death.

He was also a featured sideman on several early Hank Mobley records, and John Coltrane's Blue Train. On the latter LP, he even played a bent-up horn like Gillespie's. Joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1958 further developed his talent as a soloist and writer. He toured with Blakey for a few years, and was featured on Moanin, which is probably Blakey's best known recording. When Benny Golson left the Jazz Messengers, Morgan persuaded Blakey to hire Wayne Shorter, a young tenor saxophonist, to fill the chair. This classic version of the Jazz Messengers, including Bobby Timmons and Jymie Merritt would record the classic The Freedom Rider album.

Morgan tried to move in to the more advanced areas of the music in the early 1960s. He left the Jazz Messengers in 1961, struggling with heroin addiction, managing to kick his habit in his hometown. He returned to the music scene after a two-year absence, playing on Grachan Moncur III's essentially avant-garde Evolution album (his favourite work), and experimenting on some of his own recordings such as the title track of Search for the New Land (1964), but the popularity of his famous album, The Sidewinder, featuring Joe Henderson precluded his career developing in this way.

The title track of that record cracked the pop charts in 1964 and served as the background theme for Chrysler commercials during the World Series. The Sidewinder's crossover success in a rapidly changing pop music market caused Blue Note to rush the track's “Boogaloo” sound to market. This is evidenced in the mid-60s output of many Blue Note stars, including Morgan, and some of the lesser artists in the stable, releasing albums with modified and rythmically punchy blues tracks, such as “Yes I Can, No You Can't” on Morgan's own The Gigolo. In 1964 Morgan rejoined the Jazz Messengers, after his successor Freddie Hubbard departed, which had now become a sextet with the addition of Curtis Fuller to the group.

Alongside this commercial success, Morgan continued to record prolifically, producing such works as Search For the New Land which reached the top 20 of the R&B charts. His work became increasingly more modal and free towards the end of the sixties. He had begun to lead his own group, featuring Bernie Maupin as a multi-reedist.

Lee Morgan was murdered by his common-law wife, Helen More, with whom he was breaking up, following an argument between sets at Slug's, a popular New York City jazz club on February 19, 1972.Morgan was only 33 years old at the time of his tragic death.


http://hardbop.tripod.com/mogie.html

	Lee Morgan Trumpet July 10, 1938 -- February 19, 1972

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"In a number of respects, Lee Morgan could be considered a quintessential--or even the quintessential--hard bopper."

--David H. Rosenthal

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Every listener to jazz has had a few experiences so startling that they are literally unforgettable. One of mine took place during an engagement the Dizzy Gillespie big band had at Birdland in 1957. My back was to the bandstand as the band started playing Night In Tunisia. Suddenly, a trumpet soared out of the band into a break that was so vividly brilliant and electrifying that all conversation in the room stopped and those of us who were gesturing were frozen with hands outstretched. After the first thunderclap impact, I turned and saw that the trumpeter was the very young sideman from Philadelphia, Lee Morgan.

--NAT HENTOFF, from the liner notes, Leeway, Blue Note.

After more than a decade during which the jazz world has been inundated by teenage and even a few preteen "young lions," it may be difficult to appreciate the sensation that Lee Morgan created in 1956. Today we tend to shrug when another 18-year-old phenomenon steps forward (usually with a recording contract from one of the major labels); but teenage trumpeters with any level of facility were less common when Lee Morgan was 18, not to mention teenage trumpeters advanced enough to not only sit in the trumpet section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band but also to assume solo duties on Gillespie's signature piece, A Night In Tunisia.

We may assume, from the sketchy biographical information that survives regarding Morgan's youth, that he took full advantage of his proximity to several great musicians. He was born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1938. He began his trumpet studies with a private instructor, and continued them at Mastbaum Technical Hight School, where he also played the alto horn.

A jazz fan from the outset, Morgan soaked up as much live music as he could, and there was plenty to be heard in Philadelphia, which had produced the Heath and Bryant brothers, Bill Barron (soon to be joined by his brother Kenny), John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Cal Massey, Bobby Timmons and many others among the second and third wave of modernists.

By the age of 15, Morgan was leading his own professional group on weekend jobs, with bassist James "Spanky" DeBrest as his partner, and taking part in Tuesday night workshops at the Music City club that brought him into early contact with Miles Davis and his primary early influence, Clifford Brown.

Things really started to happen for Morgan in the summer of 1956, after he graduated from Mastbaum. First, he and DeBrest subbed with the Jazz Messengers when Art Blakey arrived in Philadelphia short two musicians. "Spanky stayed on," Morgan explained to Leonard Feather in the notes to his first Blue Note album. "I could have stayed too, but I didn't want to sign a contract, so I left after two weeks. Then very soon after that, Dizzy came back from his South American tour. I'd met him a couple of years before at the workshop and he knew about me. He needed a replacement for Joe Gordon, and I needed some big band experience, so it worked out fine."

One more individual, through his absence, was critical to the early emergence of Lee Morgan, and that is Clifford Brown. The brilliant young musician, who promised to overshadow all of his fellow trumpeters for decades to come, had died in an automobile accident on June 26, 1956, and his death triggered a search for the new Clifford much in the way that Charlie Parker's passing the previous year sent producers and managers scurrying to find the new Bird.

Morgan was the primary beneficiary of this attention, as Cannonball Adderley had been a year earlier; and, like Adderley, Morgan was recorded early and often. Fortunately, Alfred Lion brought Morgan into the rarefied environment of Blue Note Records, and showed his commitment to the young trumpeter by recording him as a leader six times over a period of 15 months, giving full exposure to Morgan's instrumental talents while presenting him in some of the most intelligently conceived small-group programs of the period.

--BOB BLUMENTHAL, from the liner notes, The Complete Blue Note Lee Morgan
Fifties Sessions, Mosaic.

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A selected discography of Lee Morgan albums.

• Introducing Lee Morgan, 1956, Savoy.
• The Cooker, 1957, Blue Note.
• Leeway, 1960, Blue Note.
• Expoobident, 1960, Vee-Jay.
• The Sidewinder, 1963, Blue Note.
• Rumproller, 1965, Blue Note.
• The Gigolo, 1965, Blue Note.
• Cornbread, 1965, Blue Note.
• The Procrastinator, 1967, Blue Note.

More About Lee Morgan

|| Messenger Years || The Final Years ||

"I must say that I was very influenced by Lee Morgan's recording of 'The Sidewinder.' Lee was very influential to me growing up."

--Archie Shepp

When Lee Morgan first burst onto the New York jazz scene in the mid-1950s, I was struck by the particularly clear relationship between the young trumpeter's musical style and his style off the stand. Like his playing, Lee was brisk, witty and strutting with confidence. Underneath the often mocking way of talking there was also, however, a very clear awareness on his part of the distance he still had to go. He listened hard to everything going on around him, and he was quite lucid  in verbalizing his goals. Among those goals were greater clarity of line and depth of emotion.

"I always played a lot of notes," Lee told British writer Valerie Wilmer in 1961, "and now I'm getting space and those long lines. You want a change of sound, like trying to play little songs on a song, and that kind of thing. Miles Davis is a beautiful example of simplicity but that's not what I want. I want to play all over the horn and have a big beautiful sound."

In the early 1960's, Lee was developing along those lines, and it was intriguing to hear him gradually discipline his formidable technical command toward more diversified expressive ends. Then Lee went through a period of relative inactivity on the jazz scene until he reappeared once more in New York in the summer of 1963. In February of 1964, Lee went back on the road with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with whom he had been previously.

Listening to the renascent Lee Morgan in these perfomances recalls a statement Lee made a few years ago when somebody congratulated him on his style. "I don't think I have a completely original style," he said candidly at the time, "though I do have an identity. An identity is when someone who knows jazz can say, 'that's Lee Morgan playing,' but my basic style is composed of a strong Fats Navarro/Clifford Brown influence, and Miles and Dizzy, and then again a Bud and Bird thing. I think a definite style comes with living and experience and travelling until you play what you are, you play yourself on the horn."

The Lee Morgan identity remains strong, and on the basis of his work here, the Lee Morgan style is indeed becoming definite. One of the elements in Lee's playing which has always been particularly engaging is the sense he projects of the sheer fun of improvising, the pleasure of making an instrument and extension of yourself. And now that he is able to feel and say more emotionally with a technique that is already so secure, his thrust of delight at being able to thoroughly command his horn is all the more heightened.

At the beginning of his career, Lee Morgan was impressive in terms of the carefree ebullience of his spirit and his often dazzling technique. To this listener, the current Lee Morgan is more impressive because in the past eight years, Lee has considerably expanded his knowledge about himself; and consequently, his music encompasses a broader and, I feel, a deeper range of emotion. The ebullience often reasserts itself, but it has been tempered with an awareness of the shadows as well as the kicks of being part of this complexly demanding era. The technique is more fluid than it ever was, but it is no longer indulged in for its own careening sake. My point is that the Lee Morgan identity has become a great deal clearer to him and at the same time, the need to fully communicate that identity through his music is enabling him to forge an increasing unmistakably and resourceful style.

--IRA GITLER, from the liner notes,
Search For The New Land, Blue Note.

A selected discography of Lee Morgan albums:

 
Introducing Lee Morgan, 1956, Savoy.
The Cooker, 1957, Blue Note.
Leeway, 1960, Blue Note.
Expoobident, 1960, Vee-Jay.
The Sidewinder, 1963, Blue Note.
Rumproller, 1965, Blue Note.
The Gigolo, 1965, Blue Note.
Cornbread, 1965, Blue Note.
The Procrastinator, 1967, Blue Note

Lee Morgan

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"One reason I admire Lee today is that he's not jumping on bandwagons. He's sticking to Lee Morgan, and you either accept it or you don't."

--Freddie Hubbard

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Freddie Hubbard replaced Lee Morgan in the Jazz Messengers in the summer of 1961, and for two years he wasn't heard from on the national jazz scene (one radio announcer, thinking him dead, programmed a Morgan memorial show which Lee heard). Like too many of his friends and associates, Morgan had been using heroin, and during this period he fought to get himself together in his native Philadelphia. From this low point he returned to New York in 1963, reestablished the Blue Note affiliation and, at year's end, recorded his greatest commercial success, The Sidewinder. The long-metered title blues was so popular that Chrysler Corp. used it behind an automobile ad shown during the 1965 World Series.

When The Sidewinder became a hit Morgan was back with Art Blakey; he left in 1965 to work with his own bands and pursue the larger success his record sales promised. If greater fame and economic security proved illusory, Morgan was able to turn out a series of beautiful albums with the help of some of the period's finest artists. His playing was of a piece with his earlier work, only stronger; and aside from attempts to recreate the mood of "The Sidewinder," which became de rigeur on his and others' Blue Note sessions, the most notable change in Morgan was his involvement in composition. Morgan wrote minimally through 1961, using his early albums to spotlight the work of Philadelphia composers Benny Golson, Owen Marshall and Cal Massey; beginning in 1963, however, Morgan let his own tunes be heard.

The last four years of Morgan's life saw him become increasingly vocal about the neglect of jazz by American society in general and the media in particular. In liner notes interviews he argued for government and media support, and he was one of the leaders of the Jazz and People's Movement which demonstrated during the taping of talk and variety shows during 1970-71. This increased social awareness seemed to signal a new era for Morgan where self-indulgence (characterized in the '60s by his song titles, which were often word-plays on his name) gave way to communal concerns. Again, the musical changes were less overt, as he retained all of the earlier passion and straight-ahead swing but now shared compositional responsibility among several members of his working quintets.

Morgan's later bands featured Bennie Maupin or Billy Harper in the reed chair, and maintained links with the leader's hard-bop heritage at a time when many of Morgan's peers began dabbling in electricity. An increased use of modes and complex rhythms, plus his own innate intensity, kept Morgan's music from sounding dated, but somehow he retained the image of his Jazz Messenger days. The cover of his last album (Lee Morgan BST84901), captures his slightly dated souciance as Morgan stares cooly at the camera dressed in suit, tie and dark glasses. (I doubt that anyone else in his band was similarly attired.)
Larry Mizell reportedly created the album that Donald Byrd recorded as Black Byrd (an album which revealed the growing jazz crossover market) as a vehicle for Morgan, but it remains questionable whether Morgan could have adjusted to the demands of contemporary pop stardom. For, as Freddie Hubbard noted in the aforementioned interview, "One reason I admire Lee today is that he's not jumping on bandwagons. He's sticking to Lee Morgan, and you either accept it or you don't."

Suddenly, though, Morgan was gone. On the evening of February 19, 1972 his common law wife shot and killed him during an argument at Slugs'. Only after the tragedy did his monumental talent, taken for granted during his lifetime, slowly begin to gain its proper share of recognition. Lee Morgan's presence on a record date is now viewed as a guarantee of quality, and deleted albums under his name are valuable collector's items. The respect many feel for his achievement, like the music on this excellent collection, was unnecessarily delayed. When will we ever learn?

--BOB BLUMENTHAL, from the liner notes,
The Procrastinator, Blue Note.

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A selected discography of Lee Morgan albums.

• Introducing Lee Morgan, 1956, Savoy.
• The Cooker, 1957, Blue Note.
• Leeway, 1960, Blue Note.
• Expoobident, 1960, Vee-Jay.
• The Sidewinder, 1963, Blue Note.
• Rumproller, 1965, Blue Note.
• The Gigolo, 1965, Blue Note.
• Cornbread, 1965, Blue Note.
• The Procrastinator, 1967, Blue Note. 

 http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1742698/best-jazz-trumpeter-lee-morgan-new-6-cd-set

The best of jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan, in a new 6-CD set

21 March, 2015

 

by Robin Lynam

On one of his later birthdays, jazz pianist Eubie Blake, who died in 1983 aged 96, is said to have remarked: "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."

It's a sad fact that many fine jazz musicians have led reckless lives. Drugs, alcohol and accidents related to life on the road have sent many to early graves. Several have also been murdered, among them guitarist Lenny Breau, pianists Jaki Byard and Pinetop Smith, saxophonists King Curtis and Frank Mitchell, vocalist Eddie Jefferson and bassist Jaco Pastorius. Saxophonist Wardell Gray probably also was, and trumpeter Chet Baker might have been.

Trumpeter Lee Morgan is one of the best-known cases. His luck ran out in 1972 at the - under the circumstances unfortunately named - Slug's Saloon jazz club in New York City, where his girlfriend shot him with his own gun. Morgan, a large chunk of whose work has just been reissued on the Enlightenment label under the title The Complete Recordings 1956-1962, was among the most gifted trumpeters of a generation that had no shortage of them. His contemporaries included Donald Byrd, Booker Little and Freddie Hubbard.

Dizzy Gillespie gave Morgan his breakthrough gig when he joined the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band aged 18. He graduated to leading his own groups and membership in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

Morgan was a key contributor to the distinctive sound of the Blue Note label in its heyday. He recorded prolifically for it both as a leader and as a sideman, and with it scored his biggest hit, The Sidewinder, in 1964. That album is an acknowledged classic, and its bluesy title track, which Morgan composed during the recording sessions, has become a standard. It is one of the defining recordings of the hard bop school.

Unfortunately, Morgan's career as a solo artist after Sidewinder seemed mostly devoted to trying to make lightning strike twice with soundalikes, but his earlier work showed a much broader talent. This six-CD set comprises 12 LP albums, seven originally on Blue Note, three on Vee-Jay, and one each on Savoy and Jazzland Records.

Lee Morgan Indeed! was a strong debut album, recorded and released in 1956, with Horace Silver on the piano.

Introducing Lee Morgan was made with the Hank Mobley Quintet, and both Mobley and Silver feature on Lee Morgan Sextet. Lee Morgan Vol. 3 consists entirely of compositions by tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, who also played on the tracks. City Lights, Morgan's third album release of 1957, features an all-star horn section of Morgan, Curtis Fuller on trombone and George Coleman on tenor and alto saxophones.

For 1958's The Cooker, Morgan reverted to a quintet. And for Candy, also released in 1958, he opted for the support of a trio.

On 1960's Here's Lee Morgan, Clifford Jordan played the tenor saxophone, Blakey was on drums, Wynton Kelly on piano and Paul Chambers plays bass. On that album and the follow-up, Lee-Way, Morgan began to emerge as a composer, as well as being a fine interpreter of standards and compositions by his contemporaries. Jordan and Blakey returned for 1960's Expoobident.

The Young Lions was originally credited to the group of the same name, but has since been reissued, and credited in different editions to both Morgan and Wayne Shorter.

The final album, Take 12, was the last Morgan made as a leader before the career-redefining Sidewinder.

Meanwhile, tonight is the second and final chance to see Cassandra Wilson perform her Billie Holiday tribute at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Multilingual US cabaret jazz band Pink Martini will play the same venue on Saturday and next Sunday.

Take Three 

Three classic albums featuring Lee Morgan not included in The Complete Recordings 1956-1962.

• Blue Train (1957, Blue Note): John Coltrane's sole recording as a leader for Blue Note, and allegedly his favourite of his albums. Blue Train is arguably the most accessible while still containing substantial music. Along with Coltrane and Morgan, the album features Curtis Fuller on trombone, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums and Kenny Drew on piano.

• Moanin' (1958, Blue Note): the title track of this album by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers is possibly the biggest Blue Note hit with which Morgan is associated before The Sidewinder. It features one of the band's strongest line-ups, including pianist Bobby Timmons who wrote the tune, and Benny Golson on tenor saxophone.

• ​Search for the New Land (1966, Blue Note): recorded shortly after The Sidewinder, but not released for a couple of years, this album is different in mood but in many ways just as rewarding. The stellar line-up, apart from Morgan, comprises Wayne Shorter on tenor sax and Herbie Hancock on piano. 

THE MUSIC OF LEE MORGAN: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH LEE MORGAN:

Lee Morgan - "Capra Black"-- (Part One):

Lee Morgan - The Last Session

• 1blue1
• 48 videos

 

Lee Morgan - "Cornbread"--1965:

 

Lee Morgan - "The Gigolo"--1968: 

 

Lee Morgan - 'Leeway'--1961:

 

Lee Morgan - 'Search for the New Land':

 

Lee Morgan - 'The Sidewinder'--1963":

 

Album: The Sidewinder
Year: 1963
Label: Blue Note

Lee Morgan - trumpet
Joe Henderson - tenor saxophone
Billy Higgins - drums
Barry Harris - piano
Bob Cranshaw - bass

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/lee-morgan-lives/Content?oid=1586779

February 03, 2010 Music

Lee Morgan Lives 

And almost 38 years after his death, the legendary trumpeter's music is getting new life through the band Charisma! 

by Andrew Gilbert

 

Francis Wolff (courtesy of Mosaic Records)Lee Morgan.

 

Charisma! performs at Yoshi's (510 Embarcadero West, Oakland) Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 4-6, 8 & 10 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 7, 2 & 7 p.m., $12-$26. 510-238-9200 or Yoshis.com 

It was bitterly cold at the East Village jazz spot Slug's on the night that trumpeter Lee Morgan's common-law wife shot and killed him. It was February 19, 1972, and Helen Morgan had come downtown to confront her husband upon learning of his plan to leave her. Billy Harper, the powerhouse tenor saxophonist who served as the sparkplug for Morgan's brash, freewheeling band, was at the club that night. "He was trying to clean up, living straight without the drugs, and he wanted to change his whole life," the 67-year-old Harper recalled recently. "He had changed his whole direction, playing freer, and he also wanted to change his mate. But I didn't know there was a problem. I was sitting at the bar with Helen, and she said, 'Well, Lee wants to leave me.' At the break, he was talking to her, and pretty soon there was pushing. She said, 'You know I have a gun.'"

In an art form littered with lives cut short by substance abuse, car wrecks, and illness, Morgan's death at 33 remains a brutal, shocking loss. After gaining early fame as an eighteen-year-old phenomenon showcased by Dizzy Gillespie, Morgan blazed an incandescent trail. Possessing awesome technique, a huge tone, crackling articulation, and phrasing so soulful that he's still a pervasive influence today, Morgan quickly emerged as a creative force, playing an essential role on John Coltrane's first indispensable album as a leader, 1957's Blue Trane. The following year he swaggered through another definitive Blue Note hard-bop session, Art Blakey's Moanin', while recording a series of classic albums of his own for the label, such as 1963's chart-topping boogaloo The Sidewinder and the coruscating freebop of 1964's Search for the New Land. Later on he helped launch a protest movement to push back against jazz's invisibility in the media.

"He was interested in doing something that might help the social situation," Harper said. "Lee and pianist Harold Mabern and Rahsaan Roland Kirk and myself started the Jazz and People Movement. One of the first things we did was disrupt the Merv Griffin Show."

So, not surprisingly, when trumpeter David Weiss put out the word last year that he was launching a project exploring Morgan's music, some of jazz's most prodigious players answered the call. The ridiculously talent-laden band Charisma!, which opens a four-night run at Yoshi's on Thursday, features a cast of supremely eloquent improvisers, including Billy Harper, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, and reed expert Bennie Maupin, who were all closely associated with Morgan. The rhythm section is equally formidable, with pianist Geri Allen, bassist Dwayne Burno, and drummer extraordinaire Billy Hart. Weiss, who produced the three-CD reissue of Morgan's classic 1970 album Live at the Lighthouse featuring Maupin on flute, bass clarinet, and tenor sax, says he assembled the band for his "own selfish reasons, wanting to play with the best."

"These cats are so strong and are still unsung," Weiss said. "Billy Harper, especially, is one of the most powerful tenor saxophonists on the planet. He's just an amazing force. But there's no middle class in jazz. Bennie is having a little renaissance lately, but it hasn't translated like it should. The contrast between them, with Billy on tenor and Bennie on soprano sax and bass clarinet, is always fascinating."

Maupin has strong ties to the Bay Area, dating back to his days with Herbie Hancock's pioneering electro-acoustic San Francisco-based Mwandishi Band (which also featured San Francisco-raised trumpeter Eddie Henderson). When that sextet didn't flourish commercially, Hancock disbanded the group and created the jazz-funk combo Headhunters, which released an eponymous debut album that remains one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time. Maupin was the only Mwandishi holdover.

The Detroit native was already a jazz-fusion veteran, having made his bass clarinet recording debut on Miles Davis's seminal album Bitches Brew. And when Davis embraced thicker textures and more intricate rhythmic patterns on Jack Johnson, Big Fun, and On the Corner, Maupin's reed work contributed greatly to the kinetic sonic matrix. While never prolific as a leader, Maupin has remerged as a venerable elder on Southern California's creative music scene in recent years, releasing several albums of his spacious, patient compositions for Cryptogramophone.

Like Billy Harper, Maupin contributed several tunes to Morgan's book, tunes that make up the bulk of Charisma!'s repertoire. Always open to new ideas, the trumpeter encouraged his sidemen to bring music into the band. As Eddie Henderson remembers, Morgan was equally generous off the bandstand. Introduced when Morgan came through San Francisco with Blakey's Jazz Messenger's in 1961, Henderson really got to know the trumpeter several years later while studying medicine at Howard University. Reacquainted by fellow trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, Henderson ended up going to school on both masters.

"I'd run up to New York and be at Freddie's house and he'd show me things, and on Sunday I'd be at Lee's house," the 69-year-old Henderson recently recalled. "He was such a talent. There was such humor, such sassy wit in his playing. He played ballads so beautifully, from the heart. He was very nice to me. He asked me over to play duets together, and showed me a couple of his trademark licks that he said he learned from Brownie [Clifford Brown]. He'd make a melody come alive with so much feeling, made it a living presence. Now I teach at Juilliard and show young students what Lee showed me note for note."

---

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http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?/topic/999-are-there-any-lee-morgan-interviews-in-existance/

Lee Morgan 

Born: 07/10/1938 Philadelphia, PA | Died: 02/19/1972 New York, NY  


Lee Morgan was one of the most soulful trumpet players to ever pick up the instrument. His playing is full of excitement and energy, and has not been duplicated today. He was fortunate to have been tutored by Clifford Brown when he was young, and that is not hard to tell by Lee's playing. A professional musician at 15, a star with Dizzy Gillespie’s State Department Band at 17, and signed by Alfred Lion at the age of 18 in 1956, Lee Morgan’s playing showed power, soul and excitement.

Like Clifford, Lee led a short life, only having lived to the age of 33. An enraged girlfriend fatally shot him while he was taking a break between sets. Although his life was brief, he was very active on the jazz scene. He had played in Dizzy Gillespie's big band when he was only 18, and came out with his first album that same year! He also was a part of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with (at various times) Benny Golson, Hank Mobley and Wayne Shorter, and has played or recorded with Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane and many other great musicians.

His music was extremely popular in 1965, and was being used in commercials, as well as being played regularly on the radio. Today, he is remembered for his compositions as well as his playing. From the earthy, soul of "Cornbread" and "The Sidewinder" to beautiful ballads like "Ceora", Lee proved that he could also be very expressive with his writing.

It is very hard to put him in a category. "I don't like labels," He said in an interview. "If you can play, you can play with everybody. Look at Coleman Hawkins, Joe Henderson. Whatever you prefer, you'll find sufficient quantities of talented musicians who prefer the same. But you should never limit your mind. With the new thing coming in, I'm one of those who prefer to swing a lot. But I've experimented with free forms, like on Grachan Moncur's "Evolution" and Andrew Hill's "Grass Roots" -- playing without the rhythm, against the rhythm, disregarding it -- the whole freedom thing. The avant-garde organist who plays with Tony Williams -- Larry Young. I made an album with him, and the next week one with Lonnie Smith, a whole different thing. Then Reuben Williams had me and George Coleman, and we did some pretty show tunes, things by Burt Bacharach."

Lee was inspired and taught early on by both Clifford Brown and Dizzy Gillespie. With Gillespie, Morgan’s playing was high-spirited and intense. His clean technique and round sound were inspired by Clifford Brown. But even at an early age he was developing his own voice on the instrument. He squeezed the horn for every ounce of its expressive power.
Lee's music bears a very urban sound, which he combined with the cleanliness of Clifford to produce something unique. Lee has talked about merging different styles of music. "Music is coming so close together," he said. "Everybody's using a little bit of everybody else. A tremendous amount of beautiful material is coming from rock musicians, from Burt Bacharach, from Broadway musicals and motion pictures.

"Now you hear rock tunes with beautiful changes. You'll see now that, as soon as a tune comes out -- especially if it's a nice one -- just about every form will adopt it. You might hear strings, or somebody singing it, or a guitar, or a jazz group will put an arrangement on it. That means everybody experiences more."

When Morgan was coming up, he recalled, he played bar mitzvahs and Polish weddings. At Mastbaum High School for the Arts in Philadelphia, he majored in music and half his day was spent in some form of music -- composition, harmony, solfeggio. There was a concert orchestra, a concert band, a dance band, a marching band.

"I've been through all that, besides the jazz -- and rock 'n' roll," he observed. "All that is beautiful experience. It's all our music. Jazz, rhythm-and-blues, spirituals. Look at Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke. They came out of churches."

 

Lee Morgan: Jazz Can Be Sold

February 19, 1970

Downbeat 

"The first rock 'n' roll group I was in -- me and Archie Shepp, and Reggie Workman for a while, too -- was Carl Holmes and the Jolly Rompers." Thirty-one-year-old trumpeter Lee Morgan -- at 18 a member of Dizzy Gillespie's State Department band, long-associated with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, writer of "The Sidewinder" and leader of his own quintet -- was illustrating a point.

"Music is coming so close together," he said. "Everybody's using a little bit of everybody else. A tremendous amount of beautiful material is coming from rock musicians, from Burt Bacharach, from Broadway musicals and motion pictures.

"Now you hear rock tunes with beautiful changes. You'll see now that, as soon as a tune comes out -- especially if it's a nice one -- just about every form will adopt it. You might hear strings, or somebody singing it, or a guitar, or a jazz group will put an arrangement on it. That means everybody experiences more."

When Morgan was coming up, he recalled, he played bar mitzvahs and Polish weddings. At Mastbaum High School for the Arts in Philadelphia, he majored in music and half his day was spent in some form of music -- composition, harmony, solfeggio. There was a concert orchestra, a concert band, a dance band, a marching band.

"I've been through all that, besides the jazz -- and rock 'n' roll," he observed.

One could almost feel the backbeat as Morgan reminisced by singing a bit of the Jolly Rompers' version of "Things Ain't What They Used to Be."

"All that is beautiful experience," he said. "It's all our music. Jazz, rhythm-and-blues, spirituals. Look at Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke. They came out of churches.
 
"I don't like labels. If you can play, you can play with everybody. Look at Coleman Hawkins, Joe Henderson. Whatever you prefer, you'll find sufficient quantities of talented musicians who prefer the same. But you should never limit your mind. With the new thing coming in, I'm one of those who prefer to swing a lot. But I've experimented with free forms, like on Grachan Moncur's "Evolution" and Andrew Hill's "Grass Roots" -- playing without the rhythm, against the rhythm, disregarding it -- the whole freedom thing. The avant-garde organist who plays with Tony Williams -- Larry Young. I made an album with him, and the next week one with Lonnie Smith, a whole different thing. Then Reuben Williams had me and George Coleman, and we did some pretty show tunes, things by Burt Bacharach."

But with regard strictly to jazz, Morgan expressed a view nurtured in anger over its treatment.
"For one thing, if they gave our music a chance on television and AM radio," he said, "you'd be surprised how many people would be listening to it.

"The people who control the media work on a low level. 'East Side/West Side' showed things, like interracial marriage, drug addiction, things that mean something to people. It was halfway good, so they took it off. 'Green Acres' and 'The Beverly Hillbillies' stay on. They insult us. They try to make you feel that your whole life is going to be straight if you use this deodorant. The guy's marriage is falling apart, and all this is because he ain't tried Listerine."I'm sure that if they exposed jazz and all the other arts, the people would go for it. But they don't want to because once people start thinking, they'll do more and more of it. Jazz is a true thing, and it's got to be surrounded by truth. And they don't want to get into truth -- not when they can do something else and make just as much money.
"I really can't understand why they don't get behind it. They could make their money from it. You know, if they can get on television and sell Playtex girdles and tell you about midriff bulge and all that, they damn sure can sell some music if they want to. They say, 'Jazz is too hard to sell.' They've sold the Maharishi Yoga and Ravi Shankar playing sitars and everything. They can sell anything and make it packageable, make it commercial."

Jazzmen wouldn't have to be on the air all the time, in Morgan's view, but perhaps it would be nice to turn on the TV set once or twice every few months and see "maybe a concert by Duke Ellington's band or even an hour in color featuring the Miles Davis Quintet.

"They do show you a few concerts by the New York Philharmonic with Leonard Bernstein explaining to the kids," Morgan noted, "but this (jazz) is the only thing America has that's really ours. Television makes you think jazz is Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass or Louis Armstrong singing "Hello, Dolly." Louis Armstrong is a true jazz musician, but television won't show you. When I was with the Messengers, the Japanese and the English did television features on us. Everybody but our own people. The only exception was Steve Allen, but Steve's a musician himself.

"If a guy comes into a record company and says, 'Look, give me $1,000 for publicity for the Fifth Dimension' -- it could be any of those rock groups -- solid. You come in and ask for $200 to pay for two 30-second spots to advertise a jazz record, and they look at you like you're crazy. They just don't want to spend any money.

"It's almost like a conspiracy. It would help them to advertise. Everybody could make money from the music, but everybody is happy to keep the level of AM daytime listening in a trash bag."

The U.S. Information Agency makes propaganda specials, Morgan said, pointing out that last spring there was one featuring Nipsey Russell, with Billy Eckstine, Joe Carroll, Etta Jones, "and a guy from the Metropolitan Opera." Morgan was on it, too, with a big band. "It'll be shown all over the world to foster good relations with our government," he said, but added, ruefully, "probably nobody here will ever see it.""Even superstars like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington don't get the exposure of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic," he said. "Maybe this music of ours isn't meant for the masses. But he's held as a great conductor, and he lives in a penthouse, and he's rich, and he conducts the New York Philharmonic in Lincoln Center. And Coltrane had to be playing in Slugs'. That's the difference.

"See, Leonard Bernstein plays to a minority audience, too, because everybody can't like symphony orchestras. But symphony orchestras are subsidized. And jazz should be subsidized. This is the only thing from America. The United States ain't got nothing else but what we gave it, man. And that seems to be the reason it gets the short end of the stick of everything."

Though angry about the mass media, Morgan is happy about the young people of today.

"Thanks to them," he said, "music has gotten much better. And when I was a kid, white people had one way of dancing and we had another. Now everybody dances the same. Rock and jazz -- it's all good music. Now, you go over to Europe, and you might be on a concert or a TV show opposite The Doors, and it would be very successful. The ones in charge in the United States don't want to do this. Like I said before, jazz is still a thing that's dominated by blacks. At first there was blues and rhythm-and-blues, and then the white man got a hold of it, and it was rock. Rock didn't start in Liverpool with the Beatles. All that long hair and stuff came later. But most of the whites got the most money from it."

Noting that the work of some successful rock groups has an intricacy comparable to jazz, Morgan observed that even with its new hipness, rock "is selling millions. So I don't want to hear that stuff about they can't sell jazz, because the music's gotten so now that rock guys are playing sitars and using hip forms, and Miles is using electric pianos. Music's gotten close. There are no natural barriers. It's all music. It's either hip or it ain't."

http://jazzconclass.com/2013/01/30/an-interview-with-lena-sherrod-about-lee-morgan-and-the-som-jazz-gallery/

An interview with Lena Sherrod about Lee Morgan and the SOM Jazz Gallery

By Jose Reyes 
January 30, 2013 

Lee Morgan was a Jazz giant and could be considered as one of the very best trumpeters that this musical art form ever produced. In my very own opinion, he is the best and of course my favorite. But with all the amount of recognition he had achieved while he was alive, the same could not be said of Lee Morgan after his tragic death in 1972 at the  tender age of 33 years of age. Unlike Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Clifford Brown and many others, he has simply been forgotten. Not for me though and as the Jazz Con Class listeners know very well, I have the “Lee Morgan Playlist” which plays practically every day. I personally have all 30 albums (CD’s) of Lee Morgan as a leader and countless others as a sideman. The problem, I feel, is the lack search material on the internet concerning information about Lee Morgan. For instance, there is no real “Official” website dedicated to him at all. I’m sure that Lee Morgan fans are stunned by this fact and wonder why this legend has been forgotten. More can be done for certain but I also feel that this great Jazz musician will be remembered in a more dignified manner in the near future.

                  Courtesy of New York Daily News

With this in mind, I would like to introduce Lena Sherrod to all the readers here. Lena Sherrod is, like me, an avid Lee Morgan fan also but on a much greater scale. Lena took that extra step to make sure that Lee Morgan will never be forgotten forever. In 2006 she made the space available and created a Jazz gallery in dedication to Lee Morgan and she named it the SOM Jazz Gallery (Shrine Of the Masters Jazz Gallery). This article written on the 40th year celebration of Lee Morgan’s death explains further. There is also a post here that shows you images from inside the gallery itself for those interested in visiting. I read both articles also and said to myself, “Why don’t I make some type of contribution towards the recognition and preservation of Lee Morgan.” I figured, why don’t I call Lena Sherrod and set up some type of interview with her so the readers here can learn more about the SOM Jazz Gallery and about Lee Morgan himself, since Lena was actually a friend of his. I called her, we spoke for a while on the phone, I explained the online Jazz station here and asked her if she would be interested in an “online interview” with me. An online interview is where I would prepare a questionnaire for her and email it to her. She would then answer the questions and email her answers back to me. She happily accepted this “online interview” and with absolutely no hesitation at all! Wow, fantastic! I sent the questionnaire to Lena and here is the result, the whole interview:

Courtesy of SteveHoffman.tv

1st.Question/Introduction:

Hello Lena, I would like to thank you again for taking the time off to answer this questionnaire. The Jazz Con Class listeners and anybody else interested would like to thank you also. Ok to begin, my first and most appropriate question would concentrate on a short bio of yourself and an introduction to the SOM Jazz Gallery. So, can you provide the readers here with this information please?

Lena Sherrod’s answer:

I have been a Jazz enthusiast since I was a teenager. A few years after I relocated to New York in the sixties, I founded SPEUJM, Inc.([pronounced SPOO Jim] Society to Prevent Excess Unemployment for Jazz Musicians) and began producing/presenting Jazz concerts in Brooklyn, Greenwich Village and Harlem, mainly because many of my friends were musicians and were not working as regularly as they should have been, given their enormous talent.

I later moved on to other callings, including the Civil Rights Movement and then a two-year sojourn in Africa. I was on my way back to the U.S. by way of Paris when I learned of Lee Morgan’s murder while chatting with the saxophonist from Philadelphia who was playing with drummer Sunny Murray at Le Chat Qui Peche, a popular Jazz club in Paris. Lee and I had been close, so I was more than upset by the news.

A few years ago, when I retired from my position as finance and careers editor at ESSENCE magazine, I decided to research a book on Lee Morgan and was surprised to learn of the abundance of albums he had recorded. So I put the book project aside and began collecting his albums, buying them primarily on EBay from sellers around the world, many from Europe, Japan and even China.

I had the album covers framed, beginning with his recordings when he was with Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band to his first album as a leader in 1956—Lee Morgan Indeed!—to his last record date as a sideman with organist Charles Earland in 1972; and I hung then chronologically in a space in my home that had just been renovated.

After reading an interview with Lee that ran in Downbeat magazine in 1972 where he remarked that Jazz artists “should have shrines dedicated to them just like they have shrines in Europe to Beethoven and Bach,” I decided to name the space The Shrine of the Masters Jazz Gallery/Home of the Lee Morgan Legacy Exhibit.

Courtesy of SteveHoffman.tv

2nd Question: As mentioned in the New York Daily News article, you met Lee Morgan approximately in 1967 and became friends with him. Can you tell the readers here a little more about the character of Lee Morgan and also give them a sort of feel of the Jazz scene in those days? The reason I ask the second part of this question, is because most Jazz fans who listen to Classic/Tradional Jazz now were either too young when these giants were playing or simply weren’t born yet.They want to somehow picture themselves being there in person and listening to these gifted musicians performing.

Lena Sherrod’s answer:

In addition to being a masterful trumpeter, Lee was a gifted raconteur, with a quick wit and a really sharp mind. When I met him, he was playing at the Blue Coronet in Brooklyn with greats like pianist Cedar Walton, drummer Billy Higgins, bassist Reggie Workman.

Back then, musicians usually had a weeklong engagement at a club, from Tuesday until Sunday, playing about four sets a night, usually hitting the bandstand around 9 p.m. and ending around 4 a.m., Some clubs had a cover charge, others did not, and you could sit and listen to as many sets as you wanted without having to pay another minimum or another cover charge. But today, understandably, club owners have to pay musicians more than they did back then, so they have to charge more and try to get as many people as possible in for two or three sets.

During that time, you could catch, say, Monk at the Five Spot, dash a few blocks west and catch Miles at the Village Vanguard and then go to the East Village and catch Lee Morgan or Freddie Hubbard or Jackie McLean or Sun Ra at Slugs’.

Those were truly the nights when the giants of Jazz walked the earth!

Courtesy of SteveHoffman.tv

3rd Question:

Getting back to the SOM Jazz gallery, can you give the readers here a visual, in detail, of this sanction, where all Jazz entusiasts can visit and travel back into time?

Lena Sherrod’s answer:

The SOM Jazz Gallery is a rather compact space, about 15 feet by 50 feet, located on the garden floor of a Harlem brownstone. On entering you see  photos of Lee, including one from his 1956  high school yearbook—Philadelphia’s Jules E. Mastbaum Vocational-Technical School—where his hobby is listed as: “Collecting jazz records” and his ambition: “To be a jazz trumpet player.” The covers of the more than 130 albums on which Lee Morgan was the leader or sideman are hung grouped by the year of recording. There is a directory of musicians with the year and number of albums on which they perform; photos of Lee with various musicians, collages of musicians, an “I Remember You” memorial collage wall, a hanging trumpet and other items. A visitor is given a guided tour of the exhibit and they also get to sit and enjoy a video of Lee Morgan performing with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Live in Belgium in 1958 or another video.

4th and Final Question:

To finalized this short but very informative interview, can you give the readers here your honest opinion of the treatment of Lee Morgan, in other words, do you feel that Lee Morgan was under appreciated for his musical achievements and/or do you think that classic/traditional Jazz has been under appreciated as a whole here in America?

Lena Sherrod’s answer:

I do not think Lee was fully appreciated for his artistry and his achievements. Case in point: When “The Sidewinder” crossed over and became a commercial success, many Jazz “purists” tried to put his music down, overlooking the fact that his repertory of compositions and his recordings ran the gamut—from blues to bossa to funky to avant-garde. But Jazz, in general, is not as appreciated in America as it is in Europe and Japan.

Way back in the day—before the advent of Bebop—Jazz had a more populist appeal. That was when people went out to ballrooms and dance halls to hear the swing bands and would dance to the music.

But, hey, such is life.

Information on SOMJazz Gallery:

(SOM viewing hours are by appointment only)

Call: 212-368-9588 or

Email Lena Sherrod: SOMJazzGallery@aol.com.

Tagged with → An interview with Lena Sherrod about Lee Morgan and the SOM Jazz Gallery • Jazz Con Class Internet Radio Station • Lee Morgan • Lena Sherrod • The Shrine of Masters Jazz Gallery  

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/4539468/lee-morgan-the-sidewinder

Basic Jazz Record Library

Lee Morgan: 'The Sidewinder'

3:05 

August 1, 2001

A. B. Spellman

Murray Horwitz 

AUDIO:  <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/4539468/150878835" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"></iframe>

Web Resources

Biography of Lee Morgan

 

[MUSIC]

A.B. SPELLMAN, National Endowment for the Arts: Murray, I'd buy that record, and in fact, I did — a couple of times! And I wasn't by myself either. It's a tune called "The Sidewinder" from a CD by the same name, and it's by the trumpeter Lee Morgan with friends. It was actually a hit on the pop charts back in 1964, if you can believe that. But Murray, I don't suppose that why it's in the NPR Basic Jazz Record Library.

HORWITZ, American Film Institute: Well, A.B., it's great that "The Sidewinder" was a hit, and it's not really all that surprising to me. It's got this irresistible rhythm, and that's true for not only for the title tune, but for everything on this album.

SPELLMAN: I'm A.B. Spellman and I'm here with Murray Horwitz to make an addition to your NPR Basic Jazz Record Library.

[MUSIC]

SPELLMAN: Ooh, that's a great rhythm section with Bob Cranshaw, the bassist; Billy Higgins, the drummer; and Barry Harris at the piano.

HORWITZ: You bet. And it's really a great ensemble triumph with the tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson in there too. It's hard-driving and never boring. It never gets into that tired, kind of... you know A.B.... sometimes even well played jazz can fall into kind of a rut, just a kind of ching-ching-a-ching rhythm and repeated horn phrases and familiar harmonies. But these musicians are always challenging one another, always developing new ideas. That makes it sound as fresh today as it did 40 years ago.

[MUSIC]

HORWITZ: You know, A.B., I truly believe in the music speaking for itself, but we're living in a time right now when doing even the most routine activity seems to take on a new significance. It's like we have to rethink everything. Well, this music was recorded on December 21, 1963, barely a month after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Yet there's this undaunted quality about it. It's uncompromisingly progressive. It's always driving and moving forward. And then, to achieve the kind of beauty and elegance that they do — and that Lee Morgan does especially well...
SPELLMAN: It's all the more remarkable in achievement.

HORWITZ: You got it.

[MUSIC]

SPELLMAN: The Sidewinder by Lee Morgan on the Blue Note label. It should be in your NPR Basic Jazz Record Library. For information about this and other selections in the library, check out our Web site.

HORWITZ: The NPR Basic Jazz Record Library is made possible with help from the Wallace Reader's Digest Fund.

SPELLMAN: For NPR Jazz, I'm A.B. Spellman.
HORWITZ: And I'm Murray Horwitz.

Featured Artist

Lee Morgan

 

• Soul-Jazz: Where Jazz, Blues And Gospel Meet
• Inside Wolfgang's Jazz Vault: Newport 1959
• LeeBop: Lee Morgan Tribute On JazzSet

http://jazzstudiesonline.org/files/jso/resources/pdf/McMillanLeeMorgan_0.pdf

Current Musicology, nos. 71-73 (Spring 2001-Spring 2002)
© 2002 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York

A Musical Education: Lee Morgan and the Philadelphia Jazz Scene of the 1950s

by Jeffery S. McMillan

"The guys were just looking at him. They couldn't believe what was coming out of that horn! You know, ideas like ... where would you get them?"

--Michael LaVoe (1999)

When Michael LaVoe observed Lee Morgan, a fellow freshman at Philadelphia's Mastbaum Vocational Technical High School, playing trumpet with members of the school's dance band in the first days of school in September 1953, he could not believe his ears. Morgan, who hadjust turned fifteen years old the previous July, had remarkable facility on his instrument and displayed a sophisticated understanding of music for someone so young. Other members of the ensemble, some of whom al- ready had three years of musical training and performing experience in the school's vocational music program, experienced similar feelings of dis- belief when they heard the newcomer's precocious ability. Lee Morgan had successfully auditioned into Mastbaum's music program, the strongest of its kind in Philadelphia from the 1930s through the 1960s, and demon- strated a rare ability that begged the title "prodigy."

Almost exactly three years later, in November of 1956, Lee Morgan, now a member of the Dizzy Gillespie orchestra, elicited a similar response at the professional level after the band's New York opening at Birdland. Word spread, and as the Gillespie band embarked on its national tour, au- diences and critics nationwide took notice of the young soloist featured on what was often the leader's showcase number: "A Night in Tunisia." Nat Hentoff caught the band on their return to New York from the Midwest in 1957.

My back was to the bandstand as the band started "Night in Tunisia." Suddenly, a trumpet soared out of the band into a break that was so vividly brilliant and electrifying that all conversation in the room stopped and those of us who were gesturing were frozen with hands outstretched. After the first thunderclap impact, I turned and saw that the trumpeter was the very young sideman from Philadelphia, Lee Morgan. (Hentoff 1965)

Morgan, who had been the subject of much discussion in the jazz recording industry for months preceding his debut with Gillespie, began his recording career as a leader with Lee Morgan, Indeed! (Blue Note BLP 1538) on November 4, 1956, followed by Introducing Lee Morgan (Savoy MG 12091) the next day. He continued to record, primarily with Blue Note, throughout his time with Gillespie and when the band dissolved in

January 1958, he was an established musician with numerous recordings to his credit, including The Cooker (Blue Note BLP 1578), under his own leadership, and Blue Train (Blue Note BLP 1577) for John Coltrane. His fiery playing found an ideal setting in Art Blakey'S Jazz Messengers, with whom he appeared on many of Blue Note's premier recordings of the era: Moanin' (Blue Note BST 84003), Africaine (Blue Note LT 1088), and A Night in Tunisia (Blue Note BST 84049). Following his tenure with Blakey, Morgan led his own combos and continued to generate an impressive out- put of compositions and recordings, many of which are sublime in their blend of beauty, fire, and humor. Tragically Morgan's life and career were cut short in 1972 when he was fatally shot by a girlfriend at Slug's Saloon in NewYork City.

In the limited literature available on Morgan, authors almost invariably touch on at least one of three themes: Lee Morgan as a "prodigy," his "hit" record, The Sidewinder, and his spectacular early death. These idees fixes, along with references to the trumpeter's drug use, too easily make Morgan's life something of a characterization, sacrificing him and his art to a generic type-the prototypical jazz life. While two ofthese themes are slightly less contentious-The Sidewinder was his most successful recording and he was, in fact, murdered at the age of thirty-three during a perform- ance engagement-the third, his reputation as a "prodigy," is more prob- lematic and warrants greater investigation. The following narrative serves to reconsider the identification of Lee Morgan as a "prodigy," a term which often mystifies an artist by simplifYing our understanding of their humanness and agency.

Authors and critics most often mention Morgan's youth when he emerged on the nationaljazz scene, variously referring to him as a "prodigy," "enfant terrible," "wunderkind," or the young lion.! In fact, a trend of exag- geration plagues some of the discourse on Morgan, leading some to erro- neously state that Morgan was younger than he actually was when he made his head-turning debut with Gillespie.2 The implication is often that Morgan's talent in some way predestined him for greatness and that fate launched him into the world of professional jazz.3 While he undoubtedly had "natural gifts," such as perfect pitch, Morgan's talent and growth as a musician were more remarkable for his own conscious role in furthering them, than for that of fate or the "God-given" ability often attributed to "prodigies."

The truth about Lee Morgan is that he did not emerge, like Athena, fully formed from the head of Zeus. He passed, along with many other Philadelphia-based musicians, through a diverse and extensive musical ap- prenticeship that equipped him with considerable experience. The musi- cally supportive environment of mid-century Philadelphia provided a com- plex positive feedback system that routinely produced experienced musicians of the highest caliber, such as John Coltrane and Jimmy Heath, as well as nonjazz musicians like Marian Anderson, pianist Andre Watts, and, much later, the vocal group Boyz II Men. Public school programs, in- teraction with professional musicians, numerous performance venues, and a civic emphasis on the performing arts combined to nurture talent in the city's youth and encourage them to pursue a creative life in the arts. For jazz musicians like Lee Morgan, these elements were further comple- mented by the proactive attitudes of many of the city's families, club- owners, disc jockeys, and, most of all, musicians, to provide the city's aspir- ing young players with an invaluable foundation. This network can be called the Philadelphia jazz community. Lee Morgan was one of the elite to emerge from this environment and successfully make the transition from local hero to internationally known artist. Being recognized as a mu- sical prodigy was not what determined Morgan'S success; his motivation and hustling resourcefulness allowed the trumpeter to make the most of his opportunities and develop his ability in such a way that his classmates at Mastbaum and, later, the jazz audience at large would take notice. An understanding of his early musical activity in Philadelphia is essential to appreciate Morgan's career and success as a jazz musician.

Edward Lee Morgan, the youngest of four siblings, was born on July 10, 1938, in a predominantly African American neighborhood of the Tioga section of north Philadelphia. His parents, Otto and Nettie Morgan, had settled in the neighborhood during the 1920s after migrating independ- ently to the city from South Carolina and Georgia, respectively. Like a great number of African Americans that made up the Great Migration from the South in the first decades of the twentieth century, Morgan's parents moved to Philadelphia with hopes of a better life and greater op- portunity. It was there that they married and proceeded to raise a family in their home on West Madison Street.

The Morgans were a musical as well as a church-going family. According to Lee's older brother, Jimmy, the first child in the family to display a talent for music was the eldest daughter, Ernestine. "Ernestine was an accomplished piano player and also an organist, but her music was basically playing in the church," he recalled. "She had the basic knowledge of music and she had been playing since she was about eight years old" (Morgan 1998). Ernestine, who also sang in community choirs and led the choir at the family's church, Second Baptist Church in north Philadelphia, had a significant influence on her youngest brother's inter- est in music. When they were in grammar school and junior high school, Ernestine took both Lee and Jimmy to performances at Philadelphia's Earle Theater. The Earle Theater, like the Apollo in Harlem, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., was a stop on the "Chitlin' Circuit," a series of theaters in major urban centers that showcased primarily black artists for primarily black audiences. At the Earle Theater, the young Morgan would have seen and heard the preeminent figures in black music including Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Such early exposure fueled his interest in music and by the time he was twelve, Morgan began to experiment with musical instruments. Jimmy Morgan remembered his brother's first efforts at playing music: "His first instrument, which a lot of people don't know, was the vibes." Playing the vibraphone for less than a year, Morgan soon turned his attention to the trumpet. Ernestine again played a crucial role in Lee's musical develop- ment when she recognized the youngster's seriousness and bought him a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday. Although Morgan'S interest in playing the vibraphone was short-lived, he became a dedicated student of the trumpet and began practicing diligently.

Morgan's desire to play the trumpet was by no means arbitrary. In addition to hearing trumpet players like Roy Eldridge and Louis Armstrong at the Earle Theater, many young musicians living near the Morgan home encouraged his eagerness to play and study the trumpet. Donald Wilson, an active pianist, trumpeter, and bandleader in Philadelphia, lived a block away from Morgan and mentored the young trumpeter by teaching him scales and how to improvise on chord changes. Wilson, who was only a few years older than Morgan, helped other young musicians in the neighbor- hood by hosting sessions where the musicians would take turns improvis- ing along with a record. Another neighborhood influence was Alan Washington who, according to Wilson, loved Dizzy Gillespie and could play many of Gillespie's recorded solos. Washington was an inspiration to many young musicians in the neighborhood, especially those that gravi- tated toward modern jazz and were knowledgeable about the available recordings (Wilson 2001).

Through his exposure to locals such as Wilson and Washington, Morgan developed a passion for jazz, and during his teen years, with the help of his parents, he amassed an impressive record collection. Bebop horn players such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie dominated his collection. Bassist Reggie Workman, another celebrated Philadelphia musician, remembers that Morgan "had an incredible record library and all of us would get together every week to listen to his records" (Rosenthal 1992:6). These listen- ing sessions, like those at the Wilson household, were also jam sessions and offered the attendees a chance to play music together. The Morgan family frequently hosted sessions because, in addition to Lee's record library, the family owned a piano. Unlike some church-going families of the time, the Morgans supported their son's interest in jazz and did not view it as a morally depraved music, giving Lee's creativity a chance to blossom. It is during this time, one in which Morgan was surrounded by jazz musicians -both students and professionals-that his ability began to develop rapidly.

Morgan began taking trumpet lessons shortly after he received the in- strument and his first instructor was a man named Hy Wynn, a music teacher who also played trumpet for the Philadelphia Ice Capades (LaVoe 1999). Wynn and other music teachers were part of a program inaugu- rated by Louis Werson, the architect of Philadelphia's visionary music edu- cation curriculum in the public schools, where children could go to desig- nated sites throughout the city and receive musical instruction for free. "At the beginning we had free lessons on Saturday mornings at Broad and Olney [The Widener's School For Crippled Children]," recalled Mike LaVoe who took trumpet lessons at the same location as Morgan. "On my first day there, we had thirty kids in the class, just as an introductory class"

(ibid.). LaVoe, unimpressed with Wynn's pedagogical techniques, began studying privately with Sigmund Herring, a trumpet player with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Morgan, on the other hand, learned what he could from Wynn, if only as a supplement to the primary musical educa- tion that had begun in his neighborhood.

During the 1950s many prominentjazz musicians lived throughout the city of Philadelphia. The older musicians, such as Coltrane, Jimmy Heath, and Benny Golson, were largely born in the 1920s. The flock of younger musicians born in the mid-1930s-i.e., Morgan's contemporaries-included Workman, Ted Curson, Bobby Timmons, Archie Schepp, Clarence Sharpe, Kenny Rodgers, Jimmy Vass, Odean Pope, Jimmy Garrison, Spanky DeBrest, Albert Heath, and McCoy Tyner. Of these, only Tyner, born in December 1938, was younger than Morgan.

Philadelphia's musical population enjoyed a variety of performance venues. W orkman recalled, "Lee came up when Philly jazz was very strong and there were lots of clubs: Pep's, the Showboat, the Blue Note around 15th and Ridge, the Oasis, the Aqua Lounge in West Philly, plus all kinds of social clubs and taverns that had live music" (Rosenthal 1992:6). In ad- dition to these were Spider Kelly's, the Earle Theater, the Academy of Music, Music City, as well as countless other locales-lodges, musicians' homes, community centers, the Musicians' Union office-where musicians could meet, listen, and play music. In addition to the numerous opportunities for jazz performance, the city was also home to the Curtis Institute of Music and one of the twentieth century's most prestigious symphonic aggregations, the Philadelphia Orchestra, under the direction of Eugene Ormandy.

The jazz community in Philadelphia was especially supportive of giving young musicians a chance to develop their skills. According to Workman:

The owners and managers (of performance venues) were so into music that they'd allow us to have jam sessions and come into the clubs and play during the early evening hours, even though we were too young to drink. There was a very healthy music scene in the com- munity taverns at the time, aside from the fact that there were peo- ple like Tommy Monroe who ran music workshops for young musi- cians, or Owen Marshall's big band workshop with new music he wrote and that rehearsed in living rooms, taverns, ballrooms, any place that had a piano and chairs and where we could make music. (Rosenthal 1992:6)

Morgan took full advantage of his exceptionally musical city and his devel- opment and later success is a direct reflection of the supportive environ- ment of Philadelphia during the 1940s and 1950s.

The two notables mentioned by Workman above, Tommy Monroe and Owen Marshall, were part of a rehearsal band scene that brought young musicians together. Although they met and practiced frequently, re- hearsal bands rarely performed in Philadelphia's numerous nightclubs or bars due to union restrictions and the ages of the musicians. Their per- formance opportunities were often limited to social gatherings, school dances, and parties at Elk's lodges, small theaters, or high school gymnasi- ums. There were many such groups in Philadelphia during the 1950s and they often rehearsed in living rooms, community centers, and auditori- ums. Wilmer Wise, a trumpeter from South Philadelphia who played in some of the ensembles, including the Tommy Monroe band, remembers, "I used to see Lee with the rehearsal band scene. Tommy Monroe had a big band and we played Dizzy Gillespie charts. That was the first time I heard Lee playjazz and he was, at 14 years old, absolutely awesome" (Wise 2000) .4

Like Monroe, Owen Marshall was an important figure in Philadelphia's jazz community of the early 1950s. Marshall, a trumpet player and composer/arranger, led a big band comprised of basically "a bunch of kids," said Wise (Wise 2000). The band played the music of many different jazz com- posers, but tended to focus on rehearsing Marshall's own compositions. Bassist Jimmy Garrison also played in Marshall's band and said of it leader, "Owen Marshall (was) one of the better writer/arrangers in Philadelphia" (Heckman 1967). Marshall's association with Morgan extended into 1956 when he contributed four compositions-"Gaza Strip," "The Lady," "His Sister," and "D's Fink"-and helped with arrangements on Morgan's first record dates for Blue Note.

The rehearsal bands of Monroe and Marshall, as well as those of others such as Cal Massey and Bill Carney (Mr. C), provided Morgan with an or- ganized atmosphere in which to refine his sight reading, ensemble play- ing, and section playing skills. By the age of fourteen, Morgan was already beginning to earn a reputation as a talented player and he started to ex- periment with leading his own small combos. His apprenticeship was far from over, however, and in 1953 he made the important decision to study music in high school.

During his years at Gillespie Junior High, Morgan decided that he wanted to play music professionally, especially modern jazz. Although his older siblings had attended Simon Gratz High School, which was a short walk from the family's home, Morgan asked his parents to send him to Jules E. Mastbaum Vocational Technical High School in the Northeast section of Philadelphia, a lengthy trolley ride to the East. Mastbaum had a respected vocational music program that attracted the young trumpeter, and while the school equipped students with orchestral and concert band experience, it had also earned a reputation for training great jazz players including Joe Wilder, Buddy DeFranco, Johnny Coles, and Red Rodney. Many of Morgan's slightly older contemporaries-Ted Curson, Henry Grimes, Sam Reed, and Kenny Rodgers-were already students at Mastbaum when he made his decision to audition for the music program.

Music was just one of many vocational "majors" available to Mastbaum's student body. The school was built in the largely European immigrant sec- tion of Kensington (also known as "Fish Town" due to its proximity to the Delaware River) so the children of Philadelphia's working class could learn practical trade skills-machine construction, carpentry, sewing, etc. -while receiving an academic education. For students interested in the arts, the curriculum was equally practical. Music majors spent their after- noons in classes like music theory, harmony, composition, solfeggio, and rehearsals for the concert band, dance band, and marching band.

Morgan's decision to attend Mastbaum clearly demonstrates his com- mitment to a career in music. In addition to the daily, cross-town trolley ride, attending Mastbaum also meant leaving the security of a black neigh- borhood and traveling to a school that was overwhelmingly comprised of white students. "In 'Fish Town' there were no Mro-Americans living there at all," Mike LaVoe recalled. "Lee lived in an all Mro-American neighborhood, but we had none in that school because it was a trade school. None of the Mro-Americans were going into trades." Black students were so un- common within the student body that the only Mrican Americans that LaVoe remembered were four students in the band. He said, "There was Lee, Kenny (Rodgers), a girl in the percussion section, and a guy, I think he played tuba, or something. They didn't live in that area" (LaVoe 1999).

It was not uncommon for children of exceptional ability to travel great distances for the music program at Mastbaum. Many of the school's music including Morgan, Rodgers, LaVoe, and, earlier on, Tony Marchione, Henry Grimes, Buddy De Franco, and Red Rodney, all com- muted from different parts of the city to learn the "trade" and become professional musicians. The nature of this sacrifice is even more excep- tional when one considers that a graduate of Mastbaum in the 1950s re- ceived a vocational certificate rather than a high school diploma. Students that left their own school districts to study music at Mastbaum were, in effect, foregoing any possibility of attending college after graduation because they would lack a diploma or sufficient academic credits to be eligible for collegiate study.

The music program at Mastbaum, among the first established at the school, had been directed since the early 1940s by Ross Wyre, the former director of the Annapolis Military Band. Graduates from Wyre's program received a respectable musical education and landed jobs in symphony and theater orchestras, became Hollywood studio musicians in the boom- ing film industry, and worked in big bands. In 1953, Mastbaum was the logical choice for any student with enough talent to get in due to its presti- gious reputation, the quality of training, and the networking potential. Morgan, however, had his own motives. LaVoe remarked, "Lee, he knew his destiny already ... jazz was his thing, not classical music" (LaVoe 1999). In the wake of the innovative music of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and others during the previous decade, modern jazz required extensive harmonic knowledge and technical virtuosity. Morgan knew he would have to soak in as much music as he could in order to excel, and Mastbaum would provide a solid foundation.

Morgan learned about the school's outstanding reputation and de- cided to go there based on the encouragement of his neighborhood friend, Kenny Rodgers. Rodgers, who played alto saxophone, was a little over a year older than Morgan, but the two were very close and played to- gether frequently as teenagers. Jimmy Morgan remembered, "Kenny Rodgers was sort of like, you might say, his 'main man' and [they were] playing gigs. They were very good friends. They used to go around and call themselves 'Bird and Diz' " (Morgan 1998).5 LaVoe, who started at Mastbaum along with Morgan in the fall of 1953, also remembered

Morgan's friendship with Rodgers: "They used to argue every morning in the assembly hall in the auditorium before we went to class and they would be screaming about (chord) changes. They would be going back and forth, you know talking about it all the time." Morgan's and Rodgers's musical knowledge-and jazz connoisseurship-was quite advanced, even at the beginning of high school, and they, along with other jazz enthusi- asts in the Mastbaum band, frequently discussed chord progressions and professional jazz musicians. Although Morgan was in a high school music program known for training students in Western classical musical, he grav- itated toward those who playedjazz and became part of the 'Jazz clique."

Lee used to scream at Kenny, "What are you talkin' about man? Here's a dime. Go buy yourself some soul. That change is wrong. You don't want to play that change. You want to playa C ninth," or whatever, you know. They'd be screaming at each other all morning. Henry Grimes would come in and get into the argument too. A lot of us didn't even know what they were talking about, you know. Lee would lift his hand up on his other hand and with the trumpet fin- gering show him, "No, this is what I would play on these changes" or "This is what Miles would do, man" or "This is what Clarence Sharpe would play." ...

Early in the morning we would all come into the auditorium, the whole school, and we would wait until the bell would ring to go to our classes. So the band would all congregate in one corner of the auditorium in the seats and all these guys, these five or six guys, would talk about were progressions, and changes, and Miles, and the Bird, you know. This was the conversation. (LaVoe 1999)

The group ofjazz enthusiasts, primarily students who played in the school's dance band, often had jam sessions before school in the audito- rium. It was during one of these sessions during their freshman year that LaVoe first heard Morgan play in ajazz ensemble context, an experience that elicited the astonishment expressed in the epigraph to this article. "Right at that moment," said LaVoe, "it clicked in my mind that 'this guy is scary' " (LaVoe 1999).

Morgan's first year at Mastbaum was filled with activity, mainly musical activity, and his ability developed rapidly. He began taking lessons with a postgr.aduate named Tony Marchione, who, while only a few years older than Morgan, was considered by many in the know to be a master trumpet player.6 In addition to beginning private lessons, it was during Morgan's first semester of high school that Wyre recommended him to the presti- gious Philadelphia All-Senior High School Orchestra (or "All-City"), a "by recommendation only" ensemble comprised of the best young musicians from the Philadelphia school system (LaVoe 2000). Morgan sat fourth chair in a trumpet section that included Wilmer Wise, Louis Opaleski, and Eddie McCoy, all one or two years older than Lee. Despite the prestige of playing in All-City, Morgan left the orchestra during his second year at Mastbaum. "He wasn't in the orchestra for very long," said LaVoe. "He was in it two years. The third year he wasn't in it because he knew it wasn't his scene" (LaVoe 2000).

Early in 1954, a Camden, NewJersey, DJ named Tommy Roberts began holdingjazz sessions at the Heritage House, a north Philadelphia commu- nity center located on the second floor of what is now the Freedom Theater at 1346 N. Broad Street. These sessions became an important part of the Philadelphia jazz scene, especially for young musicians, and gave birth to a series of events known as the 'Jazz Workshop." Beginning in April 1954, the Workshop met every Friday afternoon from 4:00 to 6:00 and featured prominentjazz artists who were in town playing evening engagements in the clubs in Center City. The first hour of each session entailed a performance by the featured artists and was followed by an in- termission where members of the audience were free to socialize with the musicians. The second hour was devoted to young musicians and com- posers who were encouraged to sit in with the artists or submit their work to be performed by the band. This unique, hands-on opportunity for youngsters to learn about jazz was augmented by the quality of artists that appeared at the Workshop. In 1954 alone the artists included the Chet Baker Quintet (featuringJames Moody) ,Johnny Hodges's band (which, at the time, included John Coltrane), Buddy DeFranco, Art Blakey'S Jazz Messengers, Bud Powell, Ella Fitzgerald, George Shearing, Roy Eldridge, the Erroll Garner Trio, and Billy Taylor. Besides a 75et admission fee, there was only one restriction to being admitted to the Workshop: every attendee was required to be twenty years old or younger. Those of legal drinking age, twenty-one or older, had to take their business to the clubs to hear the artists.

Such an opportunity to jam with professional jazz musicians was not lost on the young musicians of Philadelphia. Lee Morgan and others from north Philadelphia, as well as enthusiasts that had to travel from further reaches of the city, became regulars at the Workshop. Morgan was among the attendees for the inaugural session on April 9, 1954 when Chet Baker and his group, who were in town playing at the Blue Note, gave a perform- ance. The Philadelphia Tribune reviewed the event:

Last Friday's initial affair was very successful and included James Moody, Chet Baker, Russ Freeman and others. James Moody played tenor sax on the occasion and was well received by all present. The session was two hours long, with a break in the last half set aside for aspiring musicians and composers. Something very nice was done by 3 students from Mastbaum V ocational School. (McBride 1954)

Although Morgan's name was not mentioned in the review, he was cer- tainly one of the three Mastbaum students according to another attendee, Wilmer Wise. "Chet Baker played there one day, and Lee came up and played-you know, skinny, scrawny, little Lee-and blew Chet Baker com- pletely out of the room," Wise recounts. "Lee was that kind of player when he was a kid" (Wise 2000). This remarkable event, where a fifteen-year-old Mastbaum freshman "cut" Chet Baker, the year's winner of the Down Beat critics poll for best trumpet player, attests to Morgan's skill and confi- dence at this point in his development. At this and later sessions, Morgan's reputation within the Philadelphia musical community grew rapidly and he continued to make valuable contacts and secure gigs.

It was at the Heritage House that Morgan met Clifford Brown, the trumpeter who would become his idol and mentor. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, on October 30, 1930, Brown, whose recordings from the early to mid 1950s display some of the best trumpet playing in the history of

jazz, became associated with the Philadelphia jazz scene by working with a locally based group, Chris Powell and the Blue Flames, and eventually moving to the city in 1954. Morgan frequented the Browns' household in west Philadelphia between 1954 and 1956, receiving invaluable instruction from Brown, though he did not take formal lessons with him. Larue Brown-Watson, Clifford's wife, recalled: "Clifford was never teaching, so whenever they got together it was a lesson, but it was never one where Lee planned to come and take a lesson. They were hanging out, you know, but it always ended up being a lesson." As their friendship grew, their meet- ings extended beyond musical matters, and a mentor-student relationship developed. "I think he (Morgan) knew he could trust Clifford," said Brown-Watson. "Sometimes they would go down in the basement, and 1 would not be allowed, because they needed to talk. What they talked about 1 never knew because it was never discussed." Although the Phila- delphia jazz scene involved much hanging out and jamming at different musicians' homes, Morgan never brought friends to the Browns' home for a session. "He always came alone," Mrs. Brown-Watson said. "He and Cliff, 1 think, were jealous oftheir time together" (Brown-Watson 2000).

During high school Morgan played with many differentjazz groups out- side of school, often acting as the leader. One group that he led fre- quently played college parties and dances in the Philadelphia area and occasionally Atlantic City. This combo, which included Spanky DeBrest (bass), McCoy Tyner (piano), and Lex Humphries or Eddie Campbell (drums) was in demand and performing at Friday and Saturday night functions as early as the summer of 1954, when Morgan was only 15. Sonny Fortune, a north Philadelphia saxophonist born in 1939, recalled Morgan's presence on the college dance scene: "Fraternities' and sorori- ties' ... parties were big. They would have these dances and McCoy Tyner and Lee Morgan and them, they used to play at these affairs" (Crouch 1964:79).

Odean Pope often co-led this group with Morgan. Born in the same year as Morgan, Pope also got started in music quite early and, like Morgan, was playing gigs in his early teens. Pope recalled life in Philadelphia as a young, aspiring musician:

I remember in the early'50s Lee Morgan and I used to play duets to- gether. I was exposed to a whole host of musicians during that time. It was Jimmy Garrison, Spanky DeBrest, (pianist) Hasaan Ibn Ali, Jymie Merritt, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson. It was a whole host of young musicians really developing the basic jazz techniques. I feel very fortunate to have lived during that period because there was so much knowledge. Spanky DeBrest for example, we used to go around his house for sessions. Reggie Workman too, during that time would always generate some kind of interest in terms of getting the musicians together. Plus two or three times a week we used to play in my basement. (Van Trikt 1989)

Like Morgan, Odean Pope was also a regular at the Jazz Workshop at the Heritage House.

Archie Shepp, an outspoken saxophonist who achieved both notoriety and acclaim as an avant-garde performer during the 1960s, was another young musician in north Philadelphia who attended Roberts's Jazz Workshop. It was at the Workshop that Shepp met Lee Morgan in 1954. In a 1965 interview, Shepp vividly recounted his high school years and the environment in north Philadelphia at the time. His discussion of Morgan, Mastbaum, and theJazz Workshop conveys the richness and communality of the Philadelphia jazz scene in the 1950s and deserves to be quoted at length.

Mastbaum was the school-that's where there were a whole lot of cats playing-that's north Philly. Most of the cats lived further south in north Philly. Everybody was trying to get that earlyJazz Messenger sound then. Lee Morgan and an alto player named Kenny Rogers (sic) really got me started playingjazz. Kenny first recorded with Lee ... He used to sound like early Lou Donaldson ... you know, that great big alto sound.

There was a place called theJazz Workshop, run by a discjockey, I used to go to after school. I guess that was the place where I really began to hear it. Before that I just heard my father, mostly Dixieland and r&b.

Lee frequented the place all the time . . . He and Kenny were like local heroes, and this was about the time Lee was 14. He was a very young cat, but he was playing. Henry Grimes, Ted Curson, and Bobby Timmons used to come in too. There was something like a ri- valry between the north Philly and south Philly musicians. Spanky DeBrest was from north Philly. It seemed like some very good bass players came out of south Philly, Jimmy Garrison and Grimes. South Philly was the original Negro settlement, but the flux had been to the north.

[At the Workshop] they let the young cats come on and play. I started talking to Lee at this place one time and went home with him and Kenny.

They asked me who I liked. I said Brubeck and Getz. And they re- ally wigged out ... but they were being very, very hip. I was square as a mother. You can imagine the reaction. They said, "Oh yeah?" So then these cats asked me to take out my horn and play something. I had a C-melody sax about that time, and I guess I had a sort of a Stan Getz sound. Print that laugh!

Lee was doing everything he could to keep from laughing in my face. But then he pulled out his horn and played the blues with me. The blues was something I'd been playing for a long time, because of myoid man. I heard a lot of the blues then ... I had to forget all about my Stan Getz stuff. Then Ijust played like I play. I didn't know any chord changes at all, but I could hear the blues. I could always hear the blues. So then these cats stopped playing and said ''Yeah, that was right." Then after that they sort of took an interest in me. It was my introduction to realjazz music. (Jones 1965)

Shepp's account clearly demonstrates how the Philadelphia jazz com- munity inspired and educated the city's youth. The Jazz Workshop ses- sions brought celebrated jazz artists into direct contact with children and teenagers and the more advanced young players, in turn, helped their peers' development. Despite his youth, Morgan's intense musical activity prior to April 1954 was considerable and he was a source of inspiration for other young players, including those, like Shepp, who were older than him. "Lee was very influential to me growing up, I'm just a year older than he was. And he was quite a mentor to me during those few years," says Shepp. "Saturday afternoons I used to go to his mother's house and very often I would either bring some music or play some music he had. Things like 'Sippin At Bells' or 'Tempus Fugit,' where I'd play the chords just straight up, you know, root up ... And Lee was very helpful to me on the saxophone. He led me to identify solos and to learn how to play, you might say, notes against the chords" (Sidran 1995:253-54).

Shepp and bassist Reggie Workman both lived in the northwest section of the city called Germantown, but their activity and that of Morgan over- lapped and they worked and jammed together frequently. In 1954 and 1955 the three played together in a rhythm and blues group that went un- der the names of Carl Holmes and the Jolly Rompers and Carl Holmes and his Commandos. Holmes, from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania-also the hometown of Bud Powell-"knew a little guitar and sang the hell out of the blues" according to Workman. Morgan recalled the band as "the first rock and roll group I was in" (Gallagher 1970).

The Jolly Rompers made most of their appearances during the summer of 1955. Meanwhile, Morgan spent his junior year performing with the school ensembles, All-City, his own groups, rehearsal bands, at the Jazz Workshop, at fraternity parties, and wherever else he could play. All of this playing experience, combined with his music classes at Mastbaum, jam sessions, private lessons with Marchione and Brown, and a strict practice regimen, precipitated a dramatic change in Morgan's ability. LaVoe remembered,

Once he learned how to play the instrument, it was as if he had played it all his life. He was really something! And I don't know how it all came to fruition with him because we never did any of that stuff in school, you know. We just played concert band music mostly and we had a dance band and he was in that. All this jazz stuff he got on the outside. (LaVoe 2000)

A strong internal drive to play music coupled with his fertile environs built Lee Morgan into a formidable musician of talent and experience.

In 1947, a drummer named Ellis Tolin and his business partner William Welsh opened a music store called Music City on 18th Street and Chestnut in Center City Philadelphia. It started as a simple drum shop, but over the years it developed into a prominent venue for the top names in jazz to perform and engage in jam sessions both with each other and with the youth of Philadelphia. The jam sessions most likely began during the sum- mer of 1954-possibly inspired by Tommy Roberts's Jazz W orkshop-and came to a halt only a few years later when the business folded.7 During a small window of about three years, Philadelphia had a unique perform- ance venue that paired youngsters with the most prominent figures of the modern jazz world.

Tolin, a semi-retired drummer who had played with leading musicians of the thirties and forties, had many connections within the jazz world and was able to book the top stars for performances at his store. The perform- ances usually occurred on Tuesday nights from 7:00 to 9:00 which allowed musicians an opportunity to play at Music City without it interfering with their obligations at other clubs in town. Monday night was rehearsal night and was open for anyone to come and sit in. Tuesday afternoons often saw the professionals around the store offering clinics, jamming, and socializ- ing with young musicians. Clifford Brown, Sonny Stitt, and others dropped by frequently and worked with the youngsters for two or three hours during these afternoon sessions.

Just as he had taken advantage of the Friday workshop sessions at the Heritage House, Morgan became a regular at the Music City sessions. In fact, most of the jazz players at Mastbaum became regulars, ditching their afternoon classes to get there early. LaVoe remembered how the 'Jazz guys" were always missing from band rehearsals on Tuesdays: "We never had those guys on Tuesday afternoons in our music program. They all ran over there and listened and learned even though they had their back- ground with us" (LaVoe 1999).

Most of Morgan's networking with musicians from outside of the Philadelphia area was through Music City, as it was for many up and com- ing musicians. LaVoe believed the sessions had a tremendous impact on many young musicians in Philadelphia. He said, "I don't think those jazz musicians that came there realized the influence they were having on these young players ... the positive influence that they had." LaVoe re- membered the musicians who gathered in the auditorium before school were always especially animated in their discussions of changes and jazz musicians on Wednesday mornings (LaVoe 1999). Trumpeter and Mast- baum alumnus Ted Curson, who traces the beginning of his professional career to Music City, recalled the store's significance: "It was like the scene in Philadelphia for young cats and old cats. They would bring guys in from New York to play and they would have the young guys sit in with them. If you played pretty good you always ended up with some kind of gig” (Giddins and Rusch 1976).

Lee Morgan graduated from Mastbaum on June 15, 1956, almost a month shy of his eighteenth birthday (see his yearbook photo in figure 1).8 Mter graduation he remained active musically throughout the summer of 1956, playing with McCoy Tyner, Clarence Sharpe, Lex Humphries, and others at venues in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and Wildwood, NewJersey. This was an important summer for Morgan and his life and career under- went dramatic changes. On June 26, following a jam session at Music City, Morgan's friend and idol, Clifford Brown, accompanied by pianist Ritchie Powell and Powell's wife, left Philadelphia in an automobile headed for Chicago. Heavy rain precipitated a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the early morning hours that killed all three passengers. Brown's death shook up the jazz community and had a profound effect on many musicians who were close to him, including Lee Morgan. According to Jimmy Morgan, Lee was crushed by the news of the twenty-five-year-old trum- peter's death and had a difficult time dealing with the loss. Brown, whose successful quintet with drummer Max Roach was on the rise at the time of his death, was the preeminent young talent on trumpet in 1955 and 1956. His death left a vacuum and left the press and record companies search- ing for the next "Brownie."9 Whether the tragedy galvanized Blue Note and Savoy's interest in getting Morgan into the studio in November 1956, Morgan's arrival on the scene certainly helped fill the void and provided jazz with a new and exciting trumpeter.

Another pivotal event involved Morgan and his long-time friend and band mate Spanky DeBrest being invited to fill in asJazz Messengers when Art Blakey came to Philadelphia during the summer of 1956. The Messen- gers had undergone many personnel changes in the weeks leading up to their July 23-28 engagement at Philadelphia's Blue Note. A few months earlier the band included Donald Byrd on trumpet, Ira Sullivan on trumpet/ tenor sax/alto sax, Wynton Kelly on piano, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Blakey on drums. By mid:July, Byrd had quit (ceding trumpet duties to Sullivan), Kenny Drew had replaced Wynton Kelly, and Dutch vocalist Rita Reyes had begun to perform occasionally with the band. Adding more in- stability, Ware and Drew were also on their way out as the band prepared for the Blue Note gig. Ware described his reservations about going to Philadelphia and what happened when the band arrived.

Now, I didn't want to go to Philly, because I had heard that the po- lice were so tough on the addicts or people they thought were ad- dicts, and ifyou had scars on your arm, you'd go to the penitentiary.

Well, anyway, Kenny Drew and I both said [to Blakey], "Well, man, you got to get somebody else to make that gig." And Art fumed and screamed and said, "No, you're gonna make it-I brought you out of Chicago." Ira Sullivan was just quiet-he was going along. So we finally said, "Okay." So we come down to Philly and this was when I was introduced to Lee Morgan. Lee made the gig. Spanky DeBrest and Lee were very good buddies, and he [DeBrest] played at the old Blue Note.

Now we went up ... the thing was on a Wednesday. Now, I had a hole in my tooth that I was walking around with ... And Friday night, I'll never forget, I started dancing, this tooth went up on me and started aching, and I couldn't play; I was a nervous wreck, and so Spanky played a night. (Ware 1977)

Morgan and DeBrest played for two weeks with the Messengers, replacing Ira Sullivan and Wilbur Ware who both returned to New York. Although Blakey wanted to keep Morgan, the trumpeter left after a short time with the Jazz Messengers. In 1956, Morgan told Leonard Feather, "Spanky and I helped them [the Messengers] out. Spanky stayed on. I could have stayed too, but I didn't want to sign a contract, so I left after two weeks" (Feather 1956). DeBrest signed with Blakey and became the first member of a new Jazz Messengers group which eventually included Bill Hardman (Morgan's replacement on trumpet), Johnny Griffin on tenor sax, and Philadelphian Sam Dockery on piano.

Toward the end of the summer of 1956, Morgan was offered the first chair trumpet job in Dizzy Gillespie's big band. Gillespie, in town with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic tour, had disbanded his big band in August after their South American tour and was recruiting mem- bers for a new band to begin after JA TP ended. On the recommendation of his old pianist, James Forman, Gillespie called on Morgan to replace trumpet soloistJoe Gordon, whose unreliability and drug usage were a dis- traction for the bandleader. This was a tremendous break for Morgan and, perhaps for the first time, the brash trumpeter was nervous. 'James Forman recommended me to him," said Morgan, "I had met Dizzy before at the Jazz Workshop one evening when I was 17 and when Dizzy asked me to play I was so scared I couldn't get on the stage. I didn't want to look like a chicken in front of Dizzy" (Postif 1959; translation by the author). The new band debuted at Philadelphia's Academy of Music on October 26, 1956, heading a bill with Billie Holiday. Their New York opening at Birdland occurred a week later and, along with the inception of his recording career during that same week, Morgan's professional career outside of his home territory took off. What many spectators, critics, and record buyers did not know, however, was that the eighteen year old tak- ing the break and solo on "Tunisia" nightly was an established veteran in Philadelphia where he had been playing for years.

Although to some he apparently came "out of nowhere," many professional musicians were aware of Morgan's talent long before November 1956. Chet Baker, Sonny Stitt, Art Blakey, and almost any musician who brought a group to Philadelphia-not to mention those that lived in the city such as Clifford Brown and John Coltrane-were likely to see Morgan lingering around, waiting for his chance to sit in. An understanding of Morgan's presence and active role within the Philadelphiajazz community is essential for understanding the trumpeter's rise to prominence with the modern jazz scene. Further, when one considers the influence of his sister and the supportive elements in his neighborhood, it is clear that Morgan's talent did not develop in a vacuum. The musical activity and opportunities afforded aspiring musicians in Philadelphia during the 1950s fed Morgan's passion and he took full advantage of every chance to play that he had. Considering the training and aggregate experience he had amassed by 1956, Morgan's talent needs no romanticization. Labeling him a "musical prodigy" adds nothing to our understanding of his art and obscures what was perhaps Morgan's most extraordinary attribute-his commitment to playing music.

Notes

1. For "prodigy," see Lee Morgan's obituary Cjazzman Morgan Dead") in Melody Maker, February 26, 1972. For "enfant terrible," see Tynan (1960). For "wunderkind," see David McElfresh (1997).

2. Perhaps in a "what becomes a legend" flourish, Owen Cordle (1991) wrote, upon Morgan's induction into the Down Beat Hall of Fame in 1991: "He began his big-time career at 17 with Dizzy Gillespie's big band." This claim, which erro- neously put Morgan in the band during high school, was likely fed by such misin- formation as Barbara Gardner's assertion that Morgan forwent his final year of high school to play with Gillespie (Gardner 1960). Morgan graduated from Mastbaum Vocational Technical High School on June 15, 1956 and debuted with the Gillespie band the following October at Philadelphia's Academy of Music.

3. Contrary to these implications, Leonard Feather, in his liner notes to Morgan's first recording for Blue Note, wrote: "Lee Morgan is eighteen. Yet he is no mere prodigy, no freak sensation limited by youth and inexperience" (Feather 1956). Many later writers are guilty of romanticizing and simplifYing Morgan's development as a jazz trumpeter by ignoring this pearl of wisdom from what is certainly the first feature written on Morgan as a professional musician.

4. Individuals that played in Monroe's band at one time or another included Wise, Morgan, and John Splawn on trumpet; Kenny Rodgers, Sam Reed, and Clarence Sharpe on alto saxophone; John Coltrane on tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner and Kenny Barron on piano; and Eddie Campbell and Lex Humphries on drums. Monroe himself played bass.

5. Kenny Rodgers appeared on Morgan's second Blue Note recording as a leader, Lee Morgan Sextet (Blue Note BLP 1541) on December 2,1956.

6. Marchione studied trumpet with the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal trumpet player, Sam Krause. LaVoe recalled, "Tony was a fabulous musician. He could reach notes that were way out of anybody's normal register, like Maynard Ferguson. The only thing was that Tony wasn't ajazz player" (LaVoe 1999). Wilmer Wise also knew Marchione. "Tony was a neighbor of mine in South Philadelphia," Wise said. "Tony was one of those Philadelphia legends that very few people aside from Philadelphians know anything about" (Wise 2000).

7. LaVoe believed that many of the young musicians that went to Music City were stealing from the store, which eventually precipitated the end of the sessions. "The store was a wide open store," he recalled. "Everything was out and they had the sessions in the back of the store and used that equipment. But on the way out these guys were dipping in and stealing sticks and books and mouthpieces. They were robbing the place blind! So they stopped having the sessions there" (LaVoe 1999).

8. In a class of sixty-four graduating seniors, only four were graduates from the school's music program.

9. David McElfresh argues that Morgan's being thrust into the limelight was a direct consequence of Brown's tragic death (McElfresh 1997). While this conclu- sion seems to overlook Morgan's reputation and talent, it is possible that the plans for recording the trumpeter were hastened by the event. Morgan's move to New York City upon joining the Gillespie band, and the word-of-mouth reputation that preceded him, were more than enough to interest the record labels in the fall of 1956.

References

Ansell, Derek. 1992. Lee Morgan: Derek Ansell Remembers a Hard Bop Indi- vidualist. Jazz Journal International 45 (October): 10-11.

Catalano, Nick. 2000. Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Trumpeter. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cordle, Owen. 1991. Down Beat's 56th Annual Readers Poll: Final-Lee Morgan Enters DB's Hall of Fame. Down Beat (December): 28.

Crouch, Stanley. 1964. Sonny Fortune's Gift of Discipline. Village Voice (November 13): 79.

Feather, Leonard. 1956. Liner notes to Lee Morgan Indeed!. Blue Note LP 1538. Gallagher,Joe. 1970.Jazz Can Be Sold: Lee Morgan. Down Beat (February 19): 13. Gardner, Barbara]. 1960. Liner notes to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, A

Night in Tunisia. Blue Note CDP 7 84048 2.
Giddins, Gary, and Bob Rusch. 1976. Ted Curson Interview. Cadence (July): 3. Gillespie, Dizzy, and Al Fraser. 1979. To Be or Not to Bop. Garden City, NJ.: Doubleday. Heckman, Don. 1967.Jimmy Garrison: After Coltrane. Down Beat (March 9): 26. Hentoff, Nat. 1965. Liner notes to Lee Morgan, The Gigolo. Blue Note CDP 84212.

Jazzman Morgan Dead. 1972. Melody Maker 47 (February 26): 5.
Jones, LeRoi. 1965. Voice from the Avant-Garde: Archie Shepp. Down Beat


(January 14): 18.
McBride, Woody. 1954. Wandering with Woody. Philadelphia Tribune (April 17): 12. McElfresh, Dave. 1997. The Sidewinder: Lee Morgan. Coda (May/June): 24-27 McMillan, Jeffery S. 2000. Delightfulee: The Life and Music ofLee Morgan. Masters the-


sis, Rutgers University-Newark.
Porter, Lewis. 1998. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: University of


Michigan.
Postif, Frant;ois. 1959. A Vous, Lee Morgan. Jazz Hot (January): 16.
Rosenthal, David. 1992. Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955-1965. New York:


Oxford University.
Rusch, Bob. 1995. Reggie Workman: Interview. Cadence (July): 6.
Schlouch, Claude. 1999. Lee Morgan: A Discography. Published by the author. Sidran, Ben. 1995. TalkingJazz: An Oral History. New York: Da Capo.

Tynan,1ohn A. 1960. Review of Here's Lee Morgan. Down Beat (November 24): 30. Van Trikt, Ludwig. 1989. Odean Pope: Interview. Cadence (February): 5. Wilmer, Valerie. 1977. jazz People. New York: Da Capo.

Interviews

Brown-Watson, Larue. 2000. Telephone interview with the author,1anuary 9. LaVoe, Michael. 1999. Interview with the author, Philadelphia, Penn., May 25. ---.2000. Interview with the author, Philadelphia, Penn.,1anuary 27. Morgan,1ames. 1998. Interview with the author, Philadelphia, Penn., December 5. Ware, Wilbur, Sr. 1977. Interview with Gloria Ware, December 18. Smithsonian


Oral History Project.
Wilson, Donald. 2001. Telephone interview with the author, March 5. Wise, Wilmer. 2000. Interview with the author, Brooklyn, N.Y.,1anuary 10. 

It was at the Heritage House that Morgan met Clifford Brown, the trumpeter who would become his idol and mentor. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, on October 30, 1930, Brown, whose recordings from the early to mid 1950s display some of the best trumpet playing in the history of

jazz, became associated with the Philadelphia jazz scene by working with a locally based group, Chris Powell and the Blue Flames, and eventually moving to the city in 1954. Morgan frequented the Browns' household in west Philadelphia between 1954 and 1956, receiving invaluable instruction from Brown, though he did not take formal lessons with him. Larue Brown-Watson, Clifford's wife, recalled: "Clifford was never teaching, so whenever they got together it was a lesson, but it was never one where Lee planned to come and take a lesson. They were hanging out, you know, but it always ended up being a lesson." As their friendship grew, their meet- ings extended beyond musical matters, and a mentor-student relationship developed. "I think he (Morgan) knew he could trust Clifford," said Brown-Watson. "Sometimes they would go down in the basement, and 1 would not be allowed, because they needed to talk. What they talked about 1 never knew because it was never discussed." Although the Phila- delphia jazz scene involved much hanging out and jamming at different musicians' homes, Morgan never brought friends to the Browns' home for a session. "He always came alone," Mrs. Brown-Watson said. "He and Cliff, 1 think, were jealous oftheir time together" (Brown-Watson 2000).

During high school Morgan played with many differentjazz groups out- side of school, often acting as the leader. One group that he led fre- quently played college parties and dances in the Philadelphia area and occasionally Atlantic City. This combo, which included Spanky DeBrest (bass), McCoy Tyner (piano), and Lex Humphries or Eddie Campbell (drums) was in demand and performing at Friday and Saturday night functions as early as the summer of 1954, when Morgan was only 15. Sonny Fortune, a north Philadelphia saxophonist born in 1939, recalled Morgan's presence on the college dance scene: "Fraternities' and sorori- ties' ... parties were big. They would have these dances and McCoy Tyner and Lee Morgan and them, they used to play at these affairs" (Crouch 1964:79).

Odean Pope often co-led this group with Morgan. Born in the same year as Morgan, Pope also got started in music quite early and, like Morgan, was playing gigs in his early teens. Pope recalled life in Philadelphia as a young, aspiring musician:

I remember in the early'50s Lee Morgan and I used to play duets to- gether. I was exposed to a whole host of musicians during that time. It was Jimmy Garrison, Spanky DeBrest, (pianist) Hasaan Ibn Ali, Jymie Merritt, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson. It was a whole host of young musicians really developing the basic jazz techniques. I feel very fortunate to have lived during that period because there was so much knowledge. Spanky DeBrest for example, we used to go around his house for sessions. Reggie Workman too, during that time would always generate some kind of interest in terms of getting the musicians together. Plus two or three times a week we used to play in my basement. (Van Trikt 1989)

Like Morgan, Odean Pope was also a regular at the Jazz Workshop at the Heritage House.

Archie Shepp, an outspoken saxophonist who achieved both notoriety and acclaim as an avant-garde performer during the 1960s, was another young musician in north Philadelphia who attended Roberts's Jazz Workshop. It was at the Workshop that Shepp met Lee Morgan in 1954. In a 1965 interview, Shepp vividly recounted his high school years and the environment in north Philadelphia at the time. His discussion of Morgan, Mastbaum, and theJazz Workshop conveys the richness and communality of the Philadelphia jazz scene in the 1950s and deserves to be quoted at length.

Mastbaum was the school-that's where there were a whole lot of cats playing-that's north Philly. Most of the cats lived further south in north Philly. Everybody was trying to get that earlyJazz Messenger sound then. Lee Morgan and an alto player named Kenny Rogers (sic) really got me started playingjazz. Kenny first recorded with Lee ... He used to sound like early Lou Donaldson ... you know, that great big alto sound.

There was a place called theJazz Workshop, run by a discjockey, I used to go to after school. I guess that was the place where I really began to hear it. Before that I just heard my father, mostly Dixieland and r&b.

Lee frequented the place all the time . . . He and Kenny were like local heroes, and this was about the time Lee was 14. He was a very young cat, but he was playing. Henry Grimes, Ted Curson, and Bobby Timmons used to come in too. There was something like a ri- valry between the north Philly and south Philly musicians. Spanky DeBrest was from north Philly. It seemed like some very good bass players came out of south Philly, Jimmy Garrison and Grimes. South Philly was the original Negro settlement, but the flux had been to the north.

[At the Workshop] they let the young cats come on and play. I started talking to Lee at this place one time and went home with him and Kenny.

They asked me who I liked. I said Brubeck and Getz. And they re- ally wigged out ... but they were being very, very hip. I was square as a mother. You can imagine the reaction. They said, "Oh yeah?" So then these cats asked me to take out my horn and play something. I had a C-melody sax about that time, and I guess I had a sort of a Stan Getz sound. Print that laugh!

Lee was doing everything he could to keep from laughing in my face. But then he pulled out his horn and played the blues with me. The blues was something I'd been playing for a long time, because of myoid man. I heard a lot of the blues then ... I had to forget all about my Stan Getz stuff. Then Ijust played like I play. I didn't know any chord changes at all, but I could hear the blues. I could always hear the blues. So then these cats stopped playing and said ''Yeah, that was right." Then after that they sort of took an interest in me. It was my introduction to realjazz music. (Jones 1965)

Shepp's account clearly demonstrates how the Philadelphia jazz com- munity inspired and educated the city's youth. The Jazz Workshop ses- sions brought celebrated jazz artists into direct contact with children and teenagers and the more advanced young players, in turn, helped their peers' development. Despite his youth, Morgan's intense musical activity prior to April 1954 was considerable and he was a source of inspiration for other young players, including those, like Shepp, who were older than him. "Lee was very influential to me growing up, I'm just a year older than he was. And he was quite a mentor to me during those few years," says Shepp. "Saturday afternoons I used to go to his mother's house and very often I would either bring some music or play some music he had. Things like 'Sippin At Bells' or 'Tempus Fugit,' where I'd play the chords just straight up, you know, root up ... And Lee was very helpful to me on the saxophone. He led me to identify solos and to learn how to play, you might say, notes against the chords" (Sidran 1995:253-54).

Shepp and bassist Reggie Workman both lived in the northwest section of the city called Germantown, but their activity and that of Morgan over- lapped and they worked and jammed together frequently. In 1954 and 1955 the three played together in a rhythm and blues group that went un- der the names of Carl Holmes and the Jolly Rompers and Carl Holmes and his Commandos. Holmes, from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania-also the hometown of Bud Powell-"knew a little guitar and sang the hell out of the blues" according to Workman. Morgan recalled the band as "the first rock and roll group I was in" (Gallagher 1970).

The Jolly Rompers made most of their appearances during the summer of 1955. Meanwhile, Morgan spent his junior year performing with the school ensembles, All-City, his own groups, rehearsal bands, at the Jazz Workshop, at fraternity parties, and wherever else he could play. All of this playing experience, combined with his music classes at Mastbaum, jam sessions, private lessons with Marchione and Brown, and a strict practice regimen, precipitated a dramatic change in Morgan's ability. LaVoe remembered,

Once he learned how to play the instrument, it was as if he had played it all his life. He was really something! And I don't know how it all came to fruition with him because we never did any of that stuff in school, you know. We just played concert band music mostly and we had a dance band and he was in that. All this jazz stuff he got on the outside. (LaVoe 2000)

A strong internal drive to play music coupled with his fertile environs built Lee Morgan into a formidable musician of talent and experience.

In 1947, a drummer named Ellis Tolin and his business partner William Welsh opened a music store called Music City on 18th Street and Chestnut in Center City Philadelphia. It started as a simple drum shop, but over the years it developed into a prominent venue for the top names in jazz to perform and engage in jam sessions both with each other and with the youth of Philadelphia. The jam sessions most likely began during the sum- mer of 1954-possibly inspired by Tommy Roberts's Jazz W orkshop-and came to a halt only a few years later when the business folded.7 During a small window of about three years, Philadelphia had a unique perform- ance venue that paired youngsters with the most prominent figures of the modern jazz world.

Tolin, a semi-retired drummer who had played with leading musicians of the thirties and forties, had many connections within the jazz world and was able to book the top stars for performances at his store. The perform- ances usually occurred on Tuesday nights from 7:00 to 9:00 which allowed musicians an opportunity to play at Music City without it interfering with their obligations at other clubs in town. Monday night was rehearsal night and was open for anyone to come and sit in. Tuesday afternoons often saw the professionals around the store offering clinics, jamming, and socializ- ing with young musicians. Clifford Brown, Sonny Stitt, and others dropped by frequently and worked with the youngsters for two or three hours during these afternoon sessions.

Just as he had taken advantage of the Friday workshop sessions at the Heritage House, Morgan became a regular at the Music City sessions. In fact, most of the jazz players at Mastbaum became regulars, ditching their afternoon classes to get there early. LaVoe remembered how the 'Jazz guys" were always missing from band rehearsals on Tuesdays: "We never had those guys on Tuesday afternoons in our music program. They all ran over there and listened and learned even though they had their back- ground with us" (LaVoe 1999).

Most of Morgan's networking with musicians from outside of the Philadelphia area was through Music City, as it was for many up and com- ing musicians. LaVoe believed the sessions had a tremendous impact on many young musicians in Philadelphia. He said, "I don't think those jazz musicians that came there realized the influence they were having on these young players ... the positive influence that they had." LaVoe re- membered the musicians who gathered in the auditorium before school were always especially animated in their discussions of changes and jazz musicians on Wednesday mornings (LaVoe 1999). Trumpeter and Mast- baum alumnus Ted Curson, who traces the beginning of his professional career to Music City, recalled the store's significance: "It was like the scene in Philadelphia for young cats and old cats. They would bring guys in from New York to play and they would have the young guys sit in with them. If you played pretty good you always ended up with some kind of gig” (Giddins and Rusch 1976).

Lee Morgan graduated from Mastbaum on June 15, 1956, almost a month shy of his eighteenth birthday (see his yearbook photo in figure 1).8 Mter graduation he remained active musically throughout the summer of 1956, playing with McCoy Tyner, Clarence Sharpe, Lex Humphries, and others at venues in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and Wildwood, NewJersey. This was an important summer for Morgan and his life and career under- went dramatic changes. On June 26, following a jam session at Music City, Morgan's friend and idol, Clifford Brown, accompanied by pianist Ritchie Powell and Powell's wife, left Philadelphia in an automobile headed for Chicago. Heavy rain precipitated a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the early morning hours that killed all three passengers. Brown's death shook up the jazz community and had a profound effect on many musicians who were close to him, including Lee Morgan. According to Jimmy Morgan, Lee was crushed by the news of the twenty-five-year-old trum- peter's death and had a difficult time dealing with the loss. Brown, whose successful quintet with drummer Max Roach was on the rise at the time of his death, was the preeminent young talent on trumpet in 1955 and 1956. His death left a vacuum and left the press and record companies search- ing for the next "Brownie."9 Whether the tragedy galvanized Blue Note and Savoy's interest in getting Morgan into the studio in November 1956, Morgan's arrival on the scene certainly helped fill the void and provided jazz with a new and exciting trumpeter.

Another pivotal event involved Morgan and his long-time friend and band mate Spanky DeBrest being invited to fill in asJazz Messengers when Art Blakey came to Philadelphia during the summer of 1956. The Messen- gers had undergone many personnel changes in the weeks leading up to their July 23-28 engagement at Philadelphia's Blue Note. A few months earlier the band included Donald Byrd on trumpet, Ira Sullivan on trumpet/ tenor sax/alto sax, Wynton Kelly on piano, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Blakey on drums. By mid:July, Byrd had quit (ceding trumpet duties to Sullivan), Kenny Drew had replaced Wynton Kelly, and Dutch vocalist Rita Reyes had begun to perform occasionally with the band. Adding more in- stability, Ware and Drew were also on their way out as the band prepared for the Blue Note gig. Ware described his reservations about going to Philadelphia and what happened when the band arrived.

Now, I didn't want to go to Philly, because I had heard that the po- lice were so tough on the addicts or people they thought were ad- dicts, and ifyou had scars on your arm, you'd go to the penitentiary.

Well, anyway, Kenny Drew and I both said [to Blakey], "Well, man, you got to get somebody else to make that gig." And Art fumed and screamed and said, "No, you're gonna make it-I brought you out of Chicago." Ira Sullivan was just quiet-he was going along. So we finally said, "Okay." So we come down to Philly and this was when I was introduced to Lee Morgan. Lee made the gig. Spanky DeBrest and Lee were very good buddies, and he [DeBrest] played at the old Blue Note.

Now we went up ... the thing was on a Wednesday. Now, I had a hole in my tooth that I was walking around with ... And Friday night, I'll never forget, I started dancing, this tooth went up on me and started aching, and I couldn't play; I was a nervous wreck, and so Spanky played a night. (Ware 1977)

Morgan and DeBrest played for two weeks with the Messengers, replacing Ira Sullivan and Wilbur Ware who both returned to New York. Although Blakey wanted to keep Morgan, the trumpeter left after a short time with the Jazz Messengers. In 1956, Morgan told Leonard Feather, "Spanky and I helped them [the Messengers] out. Spanky stayed on. I could have stayed too, but I didn't want to sign a contract, so I left after two weeks" (Feather 1956). DeBrest signed with Blakey and became the first member of a new Jazz Messengers group which eventually included Bill Hardman (Morgan's replacement on trumpet), Johnny Griffin on tenor sax, and Philadelphian Sam Dockery on piano.

Toward the end of the summer of 1956, Morgan was offered the first chair trumpet job in Dizzy Gillespie's big band. Gillespie, in town with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic tour, had disbanded his big band in August after their South American tour and was recruiting mem- bers for a new band to begin after JA TP ended. On the recommendation of his old pianist, James Forman, Gillespie called on Morgan to replace trumpet soloistJoe Gordon, whose unreliability and drug usage were a dis- traction for the bandleader. This was a tremendous break for Morgan and, perhaps for the first time, the brash trumpeter was nervous. 'James Forman recommended me to him," said Morgan, "I had met Dizzy before at the Jazz Workshop one evening when I was 17 and when Dizzy asked me to play I was so scared I couldn't get on the stage. I didn't want to look like a chicken in front of Dizzy" (Postif 1959; translation by the author). The new band debuted at Philadelphia's Academy of Music on October 26, 1956, heading a bill with Billie Holiday. Their New York opening at Birdland occurred a week later and, along with the inception of his recording career during that same week, Morgan's professional career outside of his home territory took off. What many spectators, critics, and record buyers did not know, however, was that the eighteen year old tak- ing the break and solo on "Tunisia" nightly was an established veteran in Philadelphia where he had been playing for years.

Although to some he apparently came "out of nowhere," many profes- sional musicians were aware of Morgan's talent long before November 1956. Chet Baker, Sonny Stitt, Art Blakey, and almost any musician who brought a group to Philadelphia-not to mention those that lived in the city such as Clifford Brown and John Coltrane-were likely to see Morgan lingering around, waiting for his chance to sit in. An understanding of Morgan's presence and active role within the Philadelphiajazz community is essential for understanding the trumpeter's rise to prominence with the modern jazz scene. Further, when one considers the influence of his sister and the supportive elements in his neighborhood, it is clear that Morgan's talent did not develop in a vacuum. The musical activity and opportunities afforded aspiring musicians in Philadelphia during the 1950s fed Morgan's passion and he took full advantage of every chance to play that he had. Considering the training and aggregate experience he had amassed by 1956, Morgan's talent needs no romanticization. Labeling him a "musical prodigy" adds nothing to our understanding of his art and obscures what was perhaps Morgan's most extraordinary attribute-his commitment to playing music.

Notes

1. For "prodigy," see Lee Morgan's obituary Cjazzman Morgan Dead") in Melody Maker, February 26, 1972. For "enfant terrible," see Tynan (1960). For "wunderkind," see David McElfresh (1997).

2. Perhaps in a "what becomes a legend" flourish, Owen Cordle (1991) wrote, upon Morgan's induction into the Down Beat Hall of Fame in 1991: "He began his big-time career at 17 with Dizzy Gillespie's big band." This claim, which erro- neously put Morgan in the band during high school, was likely fed by such misin- formation as Barbara Gardner's assertion that Morgan forwent his final year of high school to play with Gillespie (Gardner 1960). Morgan graduated from Mastbaum Vocational Technical High School on June 15, 1956 and debuted with the Gillespie band the following October at Philadelphia's Academy of Music.

3. Contrary to these implications, Leonard Feather, in his liner notes to Morgan's first recording for Blue Note, wrote: "Lee Morgan is eighteen. Yet he is no mere prodigy, no freak sensation limited by youth and inexperience" (Feather 1956). Many later writers are guilty of romanticizing and simplifYing Morgan's development as a jazz trumpeter by ignoring this pearl of wisdom from what is certainly the first feature written on Morgan as a professional musician.

4. Individuals that played in Monroe's band at one time or another included Wise, Morgan, and John Splawn on trumpet; Kenny Rodgers, Sam Reed, and Clarence Sharpe on alto saxophone; John Coltrane on tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner and Kenny Barron on piano; and Eddie Campbell and Lex Humphries on drums. Monroe himself played bass.

5. Kenny Rodgers appeared on Morgan's second Blue Note recording as a leader, Lee Morgan Sextet (Blue Note BLP 1541) on December 2,1956.

6. Marchione studied trumpet with the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal trumpet player, Sam Krause. LaVoe recalled, "Tony was a fabulous musician. He could reach notes that were way out of anybody's normal register, like Maynard Ferguson. The only thing was that Tony wasn't ajazz player" (LaVoe 1999). Wilmer Wise also knew Marchione. "Tony was a neighbor of mine in South Philadelphia," Wise said. "Tony was one of those Philadelphia legends that very few people aside from Philadelphians know anything about" (Wise 2000).

7. LaVoe believed that many of the young musicians that went to Music City were stealing from the store, which eventually precipitated the end of the sessions. "The store was a wide open store," he recalled. "Everything was out and they had the sessions in the back of the store and used that equipment. But on the way out these guys were dipping in and stealing sticks and books and mouthpieces. They were robbing the place blind! So they stopped having the sessions there" (LaVoe 1999).

8. In a class of sixty-four graduating seniors, only four were graduates from the school's music program.

9. David McElfresh argues that Morgan's being thrust into the limelight was a direct consequence of Brown's tragic death (McElfresh 1997). While this conclu- sion seems to overlook Morgan's reputation and talent, it is possible that the plans for recording the trumpeter were hastened by the event. Morgan's move to New York City upon joining the Gillespie band, and the word-of-mouth reputation that preceded him, were more than enough to interest the record labels in the fall of 1956.

References

Ansell, Derek. 1992. Lee Morgan: Derek Ansell Remembers a Hard Bop Indi- vidualist. Jazz Journal International 45 (October): 10-11.

Catalano, Nick. 2000. Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Trumpeter. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cordle, Owen. 1991. Down Beat's 56th Annual Readers Poll: Final-Lee Morgan Enters DB's Hall of Fame. Down Beat (December): 28.

Crouch, Stanley. 1964. Sonny Fortune's Gift of Discipline. Village Voice (November 13): 79.

Feather, Leonard. 1956. Liner notes to Lee Morgan Indeed!. Blue Note LP 1538. Gallagher,Joe. 1970.Jazz Can Be Sold: Lee Morgan. Down Beat (February 19): 13. Gardner, Barbara]. 1960. Liner notes to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, A

Night in Tunisia. Blue Note CDP 7 84048 2.
Giddins, Gary, and Bob Rusch. 1976. Ted Curson Interview. Cadence (July): 3. Gillespie, Dizzy, and Al Fraser. 1979. To Be or Not to Bop. Garden City, NJ.: Doubleday. Heckman, Don. 1967.Jimmy Garrison: After Coltrane. Down Beat (March 9): 26. Hentoff, Nat. 1965. Liner notes to Lee Morgan, The Gigolo. Blue Note CDP 84212.
Jazzman Morgan Dead. 1972. Melody Maker 47 (February 26): 5.
Jones, LeRoi. 1965. Voice from the Avant-Garde: Archie Shepp. Down Beat
(January 14): 18.
McBride, Woody. 1954. Wandering with Woody. Philadelphia Tribune (April 17): 12. McElfresh, Dave. 1997. The Sidewinder: Lee Morgan. Coda (May/June): 24-27 McMillan, Jeffery S. 2000. Delightfulee: The Life and Music ofLee Morgan. Masters the-
sis, Rutgers University-Newark.
Porter, Lewis. 1998. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan.
Postif, Frant;ois. 1959. A Vous, Lee Morgan. Jazz Hot (January): 16.
Rosenthal, David. 1992. Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955-1965. New York:
Oxford University.
Rusch, Bob. 1995. Reggie Workman: Interview. Cadence (July): 6.
Schlouch, Claude. 1999. Lee Morgan: A Discography. Published by the author. Sidran, Ben. 1995. TalkingJazz: An Oral History. New York: Da Capo.
Tynan,1ohn A. 1960. Review of Here's Lee Morgan. Down Beat (November 24): 30. Van Trikt, Ludwig. 1989. Odean Pope: Interview. Cadence (February): 5. Wilmer, Valerie. 1977. jazz People. New York: Da Capo.

Interviews

Brown-Watson, Larue. 2000. Telephone interview with the author,1anuary 9. LaVoe, Michael. 1999. Interview with the author, Philadelphia, Penn., May 25. ---.2000. Interview with the author, Philadelphia, Penn.,1anuary 27. Morgan,1ames. 1998. Interview with the author, Philadelphia, Penn., December 5. Ware, Wilbur, Sr. 1977. Interview with Gloria Ware, December 18. Smithsonian

Oral History Project.
Wilson, Donald. 2001. Telephone interview with the author, March 5. Wise, Wilmer. 2000. Interview with the author, Brooklyn, N.Y.,January 10.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/delightfulee-the-life-and-music-of-lee-morgan-lee-morgan-by-larry-reni-thomas.php
 

DelightfuLee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan

by LARRY RENI THOMAS  

January 14, 2009

 

DelightfuLee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan
Jeffrey McMillan
Cloth/Paper; 272 pages 


University of Michigan Press
2008

This is an excellent, well-written, abundantly researched, scholarly book on the life and music of one of the great, unheralded heroes of jazz—the trumpeter Lee Morgan—who was shot and killed at Slug's Jazz Club in Manhattan in 1972, at the tender age of 33 years, by his 47 year old partner, Helen Morgan (although not legally married to Morgan, she adopted his last name).

Author Jeffrey McMillan, who is also a trumpet player, is obviously smitten by Morgan's music and resilient spirit. His short time on earth was troubled and drug-riddled, but musically fruitful, as McMillan documents. The author, who was aided by Morgan's brother Jimmy, has uncovered information that previous researchers have failed to come up with—like Morgan's precise itinerary, quotations from Helen Morgan, and the fact that Helen's court records are missing. We also learn that Morgan was once legally married to Kiko Morgan (and now we probably know who is getting any royalty checks). 

McMillan's only shortcoming is his tendency to give long, detailed analyses of Morgan's recording sessions. These tend to be oriented toward musicians, take up a great deal of the book, maybe a one-third, and read like reviews which would be perfect for a periodical, but are a bit tedious for a book. Yet the biography, despite this, is of abiding interesting and worthy of being in all jazz lovers' libraries—especially, perhaps, of those who could learn not to make the same mistakes Morgan made. 

It is clear that Morgan was a rebel with a cause, but one who had a serious flaw that bears careful consideration from other young, up and coming jazz musicians who may be enticed by too much fast living so close to the edge. Morgan's intent, as stated time and time again in the biography, was to use his music to try and soothe the savage beast, in particular society's disrespect for jazz music and jazz musicians, and racial discrimination. DelightfuLee suggests that while Morgan may have very well done that, his use of drugs to escape reality may have diminished his effectiveness. Of course, this is nothing new to jazz history; McMillan is writing about a life style that has been repeated by many other creative people, regardless of color (another example being the white cornetist Bix Beiderbecke). 

What is difficult to understand about Morgan's life is his habit of biting the hand that fed him. By most accounts, he was what some on the street call "a greasy junkie," someone who would do almost anything to get his hand on a bag of heroin. McMillan cites an example of this when he mentions the time Morgan and trumpeter Chet Baker purchased some heroin together. When Baker turned his back before they were about to inject themselves, Morgan substituted Baker's shot with water.

Morgan, according to McMillan, made his final mistake when he crossed Helen and began boldly to be seen with another woman, sometimes in Helen's own presence. This would probably cause anyone to snap and lose their sanity. In the end, Helen, whose exclusive interview is included in the book, was, according to McMillan, probably committed to a mental institution, where she had time to think about what she had done not only to Morgan and herself, but also to the wider jazz world.

Helen had silenced the man with the horn who had brought so much joy, innovation and determination to the musical world. McMillan's book convincingly shows that it was a tragedy Lee Morgan couldn't have been around longer, and that there is every reason to think that his future musical endeavors would have been bright and illuminating, and would have uplifted the cultural awareness of his listeners. What a waste, what a sad loss to humanity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Morgan 

Lee Morgan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lee Morgan
Background information
Birth name	Edward Lee Morgan[1]
Born	July 10, 1938 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Died	February 19, 1972 (aged 33) New York City, New York, United States
Genres	Jazz, bebop, hard bop
Occupation(s)	Trumpeter, composer
Instruments	Trumpet, flugelhorn
Years active	1956-1972
Labels	Blue Note Records, Vee-Jay Records
Associated acts	Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Curtis Fuller, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Henderson, Andrew Hill, Charles Earland, Art Farmer, Johnny Griffin, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter, Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, Wynton Kelly, Grachan Moncur III, Clifford Jordan, Benny Golson

Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American hard bop trumpeter.^[2][3]

Contents

• 1 Biography
• 2 Death
• 3 Discography
• 4 Further reading
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Biography

Edward Lee Morgan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 10, 1938, the youngest of Otto Ricardo and Nettie Beatrice Morgan's four children. A leading trumpeter and composer, he recorded prolifically from 1956 until a day before his death in February 1972. Originally interested in the vibraphone, he soon showed a growing enthusiasm for the trumpet. Morgan also knew how to play the alto saxophone. On his thirteenth birthday, his sister Ernestine gave him his first trumpet. His primary stylistic influence was Clifford Brown, with whom he took a few lessons as a teenager. He joined the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band at 18, and remained a member for a year and a half, until economic circumstances forced Dizzy to disband the unit in 1958. He began recording for Blue Note Records in 1956, eventually recording 25 albums as a leader for the company, with more than 250 musicians. He also recorded on the Vee-Jay label and one album for Riverside Records on its short-lived Jazzland subsidiary.

He was a featured sideman on several early Hank Mobley records, as well as on John Coltrane's Blue Train (1957), on which he played a trumpet with an angled bell (given to him by Gillespie) and delivered one of his most celebrated solos on the title track.

Joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1958 further developed his talent as a soloist and composer. He toured with Blakey for a few years, and was featured on numerous albums by the Messengers, including Moanin', which is one of the band's best-known recordings. When Benny Golson left the Jazz Messengers, Morgan persuaded Blakey to hire Wayne Shorter, a young tenor saxophonist, to fill the chair. This version of the Jazz Messengers, including pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymie Merritt, recorded the classic The Freedom Rider album. The drug problems of Morgan and Timmons forced them to leave the band in 1961, and the trumpeter returned to Philadelphia, his hometown. According to Tom Perchard, a Morgan biographer, it was Blakey who introduced the trumpeter to heroin, which impeded his progression in his career.

Lee Morgan (1959)

On returning to New York in 1963, he recorded The Sidewinder (1963), which became his greatest commercial success. The title track cracked the pop charts in 1964, and served as the background theme for Chrysler television commercials during the World Series. The tune was used without Morgan's or Blue Note's consent, and intercession by the label's lawyers led to the commercial being withdrawn.^{[citation needed]} Due to the crossover success of "The Sidewinder" in a rapidly changing pop music market, Blue Note encouraged its other artists to emulate the tune's "boogaloo" beat. Morgan himself repeated the formula several times with compositions such as "Cornbread" (from the eponymous album Cornbread) and "Yes I Can, No You Can't" on The Gigolo. According to drummer Billy Hart, Morgan said he had recorded "The Sidewinder" as filler for the album, and was bemused that it had turned into his biggest hit. He felt that his playing was much more advanced on Grachan Moncur III's essentially avant-garde Evolution album, recorded a month earlier, on November 21, 1963.

After this commercial success, Morgan continued to record prolifically, producing such works as Search for the New Land (1964), which reached the top 20 of the R&B charts. He also briefly rejoined the Jazz Messengers after his successor, Freddie Hubbard, joined another group. Together with John Gilmore, this lineup was filmed by the BBC for seminal jazz television program Jazz 625.

As the '60s progressed, he recorded some twenty additional albums as a leader, and continued to record as a sideman on the albums of other artists, including Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer; Stanley Turrentine's Mr. Natural; Freddie Hubbard's The Night of the Cookers; Hank Mobley's Dippin', A Caddy for Daddy, A Slice of the Top, Straight No Filter; Jackie McLean's Jackknife and Consequence; Joe Henderson's Mode for Joe; McCoy Tyner's Tender Moments; Lonnie Smith's Think and Turning Point; Elvin Jones' The Prime Element; Jack Wilson's Easterly Winds; Reuben Wilson's Love Bug; Larry Young's Mother Ship; Lee Morgan and Clifford Jordan Live in Baltimore 1968; Andrew Hill's Grass Roots; as well as on several albums with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

He became more politically involved in the last two years of his life, becoming one of the leaders of the Jazz and People's Movement. The group demonstrated during the taping of talk and variety shows during 1970-71 to protest the lack of jazz artists as guest performers and members of the programs' bands. His working band during those last years featured reed players Billy Harper or Bennie Maupin, pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jymie Merritt and drummers Mickey Roker or Freddie Waits. Maupin, Mabern, Merritt and Roker are featured on the well-regarded three-disc, Live at the Lighthouse, recorded during a two-week engagement at the Hermosa Beach club, California, in July 1970.

Death

Morgan was killed in the early hours of February 19, 1972, at Slug's Saloon, a jazz club in New York City's East Village where his band was performing.^[4] Following an altercation between sets, Morgan's common-law wife Helen More (a.k.a. Morgan) shot him. The injuries were not immediately fatal, but the ambulance was slow in arriving on the scene as the city had experienced heavy snowfall which resulted in extremely difficult driving conditions. They took so long to get there that Morgan bled to death. He was 33 years old.^[4] Helen Morgan was arrested and spent some time in prison before being released on parole.^[5] After her release, Helen Morgan returned to her native North Carolina and died there from a heart condition in March 1996.

Discography

Main article: Lee Morgan discography

Title		Year		Label
Lee Morgan Indeed!		1956		Blue Note
Introducing Lee Morgan		1956		Savoy
Lee Morgan Sextet		1957		Blue Note
Lee Morgan Vol. 3		1957		Blue Note
City Lights		1957		Blue Note
The Cooker		1957		Blue Note
Candy		1957		Blue Note
Here's Lee Morgan		1960		Vee-Jay
The Young Lions		1960		Vee-Jay
Expoobident		1960		Vee-Jay
Lee-Way		1960		Blue Note
Take Twelve		1962		Jazzland Records
The Sidewinder		1963		Blue Note
Search for the New Land		1964		Blue Note
Tom Cat		1964		Blue Note
The Rumproller		1965		Blue Note
The Gigolo		1965		Blue Note
Cornbread		1965		Blue Note
Infinity		1965		Blue Note
Delightfulee Morgan		1966		Blue Note
Charisma		1966		Blue Note
The Rajah		1966		Blue Note
Standards		1967		Blue Note
Sonic Boom		1967		Blue Note
The Procrastinator		1967		Blue Note
The Sixth Sense		1967		Blue Note
Taru		1968		Blue Note
Caramba!		1968		Blue Note
Live at the Lighthouse		1970		Blue Note
The Last Session		1971		Blue Note

Further reading

• Jeff McMillan DelightfuLee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan (2008) University of Michigan Press
• Tom Perchard Lee Morgan: His Life, Music and Culture (2006) Equinox
• Thomas, Larry Reni. The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan (1996)

References

1. 
   

NNDB

Allmusic.com

McMillan, J.S., (2008). DelightfuLee: the life and music of Lee Morgan, University of Michigan Press, p.1

Tobler, John (1990). NME Rock 'N' Roll Years (1st ed.). London: Reed International Books Ltd. p. 235. CN 5585.

5. Thomas, Larry Reni. The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan (1996)

External links

• Lee Morgan tribute site
• Masaya Matsumura's Lee Morgan Discography site
• Lee Morgan discography
• Lee Morgan playing his famous "Ceora" ballad
• The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan by Larry Reni Thomas