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Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.

RADIO July 17, 2020

50th Anniversary Blue Notes For July

First show of the month, you know that means: Blue Note 50th anniversaries! This month, Bobby Hutcherson and Harold Land (San Francisco), Lee Morgan (celebrating his July birthday at the Lighthouse), McCoy Tyner (Cosmos via Asante), and Elvin Jones (Coalition). We've also got the 78s of BN-24 from James P. Johnson, as well as Clifford Brown and Jimmy Smith (recorded on July 4, 1957). There's also the Thinking of Home session by Hank Mobley, but that will have to wait ...

ALBUM REVIEW February 13, 2020

Lee Morgan: The Sidewinder

By Greg Simmons

Legend tells us that 1964's The Sidewinder was the album, and indeed the song, which saved Blue Note Records at a time when the label was struggling financially. Dashed off to fill some tape, at the end of the recording session, it peaked at number 25 on the Billboard charts—almost unheard of for a hard-bop record—stabilizing the label's finances as well as providing Lee Morgan with steady royalties for the remainder of his tragically abbreviated life. Although the ...

RADIO December 17, 2019

Hard Bop Trumpet - Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd (1960 - 1967)

By Russell Perry

In this portion of Jazz at 100, we are featuring tenor players and trumpeters who propelled hard bop into the 1960s. In this hour, we will continue with the Trumpet Players, Part 1, featuring three players who apprenticed in the Jazz Messengers: Lee Morgan—a Blue Note leader since 1956, Freddie Hubbard—who made his debut as a leader (also for Blue Note) in 1960 and Donald Byrd who recorded with everyone from Horace Silver to John Coltrane before becoming leader for ...

FILM REVIEW April 4, 2017

I Called Him Morgan at Belfast Film Festival 2017

By Ian Patterson

I Called Him Morgan (2016) A film by Kasper Collin Belfast Film Festival Strand Arts Centre, jny:Belfast, N. Ireland March 31, 2017 There was something appropriate about the screening of Kasper Collin's documentary I Called Him Morgan in the Strand Arts Centre. The furnishings of this old, art-deco cinema look little changed from the 1950s, when, on the other side of the Atlantic, trumpeter Lee Morgan burst onto the New York jazz scene ...

FILM REVIEW March 24, 2017

I Called Him Morgan by Kasper Collin

By Christine Connallon

Lee MorganI Called Him Morgan A film by Kasper Collin 2016 Forty five years ago on a precariously snowy night, prolifically talented jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was fatally wounded at Slug's Saloon in the East Village of jny: New York City, shot down by his common-law wife, Helen, in front of horrified friends and fans at the bar of the venue. Kasper Collin's haunting documentary I Called Him Morgan is a revealing portrait of ...

MULTIPLE REVIEWS March 6, 2017

Lee Morgan On Music Matters

By Greg Simmons

Somewhere up in the sky there's a pantheon of jazz legends. Lee Morgan rightfully has a seat in the top tier, and the jam must be extraordinary. Morgan hit the scene in 1956, an obvious prodigy who'd scored two triumphs at the tender age of eighteen: a standing gig in Dizzy Gillespie's big band and the commencement of a prolific recording career as a leader for Blue Note Records. Following his first LP, Indeed, he went on to ...

MY BLUE NOTE OBSESSION January 23, 2017

Lee Morgan: The Sidewinder – 1964

By Marc Davis

What's left to say about Lee Morgan's most popular album, The Sidewinder? How about this: It is one FUN record. That's capital F, capital U, capital N. Anything wrong with that? Sometimes it feels like all the fun has gone out of jazz. As if nothing can be Good unless it is Serious. As if muted Miles and spiritual Trane are the ultimate barometers of true jazz respectability. Hey, I love Miles and Trane and all ...