May 2009
Lee Morgan's beginnings as a musician were as promising as his demise was tragic. A jazz prodigy who possessed blazing technique and a muscular tone, Morgan recorded his first Blue Note sessions as a teenager and was a veteran at 22 when he laid down Lee-Way with Blue Note luminaries Jackie McLean on alto sax, Bobby Timmons on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Blakey on drums. Morgan led nearly two dozen recordings throughout the 1950s and '60s, including one of Blue Note's all-time top sellers, the R&B-influenced The Sidewinder, continuing to gig into the early '70s. Then one night at a jazz club in New York's East Village, an altercation between sets led to the worst kind of tragedy: Morgan's live-in girlfriend shot him in the heart, killing him in an instant. Next to The Sidewinder and other recordings Morgan made throughout the 1960s, Lee-Way is obscure, but its bluesy hard bop sprawling over just four cuts gives it musical legs. Morgan can play hot or cool, shifting between the two in same line with ease, deconstructing the melody of a tune like Cal Massey's "These are the Soulful Days" in wails and bursts, then revisiting it to unify the number. "The Lion and the Wolff," a tribute to Blue Note principals Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, begins with a chugging bass line and rhythmic drumming that lead to fiery soloing from Morgan and McLean. Blakey has a frenetic drum solo here and on another Cal Massey tune, "Nakatini Suite." Sonically, Lee-Way boasts a vivid piano that doesn't exhibit the blurry softness that it does on some Rudy Van Gelder recordings, and bass that doesn't go particularly deep but is well defined. The mono recording sounds even more pure and direct when played back with a mono cartridge, in which case the instruments take on an enhanced sense of immediacy and layering. Original Blue Note mono LPs are commanding increasingly ridiculous prices, and even the prices of Japanese reissues are creeping upwards. All of this makes Classic Records' reissues -- with their hushed proprietary vinyl and glossy, authentically crafted sleeves -- seem like an even greater bargain at their $33 list price. Get them now while you can, or regret it later. GO BACK TO: |
Lee
Morgan - Lee-Way
