BLP 1538

 Lee Morgan - Indeed!

Released - December 1956

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, November 4, 1956
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Clarence Sharpe, alto sax; Horace Silver, piano; Wilbur Ware, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

tk.3 Gaza Strip
tk.4 Reggie Of Chester
tk.6 Little T
tk.9 Stand By
tk.11 Roccus
tk.14 The Lady

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images / 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Roccus	Horace Silver	04/11/1956
Reggie of Chester	Benny Golson	04/11/1956
The Lady	Owen Marshall	04/11/1956
Side Two
Little T.	Donald Byrd	04/11/1956
Gaza Strip	Owen Marshall	04/11/1956
Stand By	Benny Golson	04/11/1956

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	REID MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	LEONARD FEATHER

Liner Notes

IN the light of statistics currently available, it would appear that jazz has reached a plateau of achievement that is little short of breathtaking. Not only are there more gifted musicians per square mile than any one student can possibly keep track of; there are also more jazz record releases per hop minute; moreover, the time taken by these musicians and these records in reaching the public is diminishing constantly. No more striking example could be found than in ht e first recording by Lee Morgan, a trumpet player newly on the scene from Philadelphia.

Lee Morgan is eighteen. Yet he is no mere prodigy, no freak sensation limited by youth and inexperience. At this writing, he is holding down what may well be one of the most challenging assignments in contemporary jazz, working with John Gillespie's big band as featured trumpet soloist - yes, featured, and featured proudly, because as a trumpet player himself, Gillespie is particularly well qualified to pass on the merits of this astonishing youngster. Though Lee Morgan's style stems directly from the bop dynasty started some thirteen years ago by Gillespie, he was just five years old when the first important bop records reached the public. Today, though his sound is that of a mature and inspired musician, his age is less than half of his bop-pioneer boss (time, of course, will adjust this disproportion - by 1960, he will be more than half as old as Dizzy.)

But enough of this quibbling about age brackets; we should be more concerned about what Lee Morgan has to say and less absorbed in the fact of his saying it so unexpectedly soon. A brief biographical rundown reveals that he was born Edward Lee Morgan, July 10, 1938, in Philadelphia, the youngest of four children, that his father works in a wool factory and his sister plays piano for a church choir. He studied trumpet privately, and at Mastbaum Tech; at school he doubled on alto horn. From the age of fifteen, he has played week ends with his own combos around town, making the college fraternity and dance route mostly in partnership with a bass player who delights in the name of Spanky DeBrest.

Playing in a series of Tuesday night jazz workshop conclaves at Music City, he met and/or sat in with many of the big names such as Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. Last summer, when Art Blakey arrived in town with a revamped edition of the Jazz Messengers, his new trumpet player was sick and the bassist was hung up somewhere.

"Spanky and I helped them out," says Lee. "Spanky stayed on. 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 after this 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."

As one might expect of any trumpet player born in Philadelphia in 1938, Lee Morgan names as his idols and influences, John Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown, and is impressed by the work of Kenny Dorham, Thad Jones and Art Farmer. Though you will hear all of these influences at work in his performances on these sides, you will also draw the inferences that anyone who can cook with this much assurance at this stage of his development is reasonably certain to have an unmistakable style of his won, not to mention a flock of imitators, before too many years roll by.

For his record debut, Lee brought with him a friend from Philadelphia. ("Clarence Sharpe seemed to us to be the playingest young altoman around Philly, but nobody seemed to give him enough recognition - he'd been working in rhythm and blues bands.") The rhythm section should now be familiar to Blue Note aficionados. Horace Silver, of course, has had his own quintet since leaving the Jazz Messengers; Philly Joe Jones, whose steady gig is with Miles Davis, has been heard on several LPs on this label, and Wilbur Ware was featured on J.R. Monterose's Blue Note LP BLP 1536.

Roccus, which opens the first side, is a minor key Latin opus which Horace originally wrote and recorded with the Lou Donaldson quartet. The startling impact of hearing Lee's first solo is better heard than described, so won't go into details. Clarence Sharpe (whom we prefer to think of as C #) has an interesting sound, perhaps a little more reminiscent of that of Lem Davis, a well-know alto man of the '40s, than of Charlie Parker, though Bird certainly seems to be the main undercurrent stylistically.

Reggie of Chester, written by Benny Golson, the talented composer and tenor man with the Gillespie band, offers a superb sample of Lee's command, confidence and continuity. The Lady, written by Owen E Marshall, a trumpeter and pianist from Philadelphia, offers the first illustration of the Morgan approach to a slow, pretty tune, equipped with all the qualities that contribute toward an intelligent modern jazz trumpet solo: the economy of notes where economy is called for, sensitive use of grace notes and appogiaturas, an occasional surprising cluster of dotted eighths and sixteenths or of triplets, and many other devices. Horace and C # are heard from before Lee returns for the effective closing cadenzas.

Little T, an original by another promising young trumpet player, Donald Byrd, runs over eight minutes and offers extensive solo play to trumpet, alto and piano before Lee returns in around the six-minute mark. Gaza Strip, another Owen Marshall opus, proceeds from an eight-bar introduction by Philly Joe into a simple, up-tempo, minor theme from which C # takes off for one of his best solos, followed again by the contributions of Horace and Lee. Stand By, another Golson original, has an infectious upward line in its theme and follows he same general patterm, except that a walking bass solo by Wilbur Ware follows the trumpet.

I'd like to suggest that you try a blindfold test on your friends with this record. You may be surprised at some of the guesses you'll get on the alto player, but more particularly, of course, on the trumpet soloist. It goes without saying that he'll be mistaken for men who can spot him many years' experience, but who have nothing on him in command of the horn and in sheer exuberance of improvisation. Credit Blue Note with yet another in the long line of impressive "firsts" that it has succeeded in registering through almost two decades of jazz recording.

- LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The Encyclopedia Yearbook of Jazz)

Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT INDEED!

The present music represents Lee Morgan's first trip to a studio and first album as a leader, though the evidence on these points at the time of original issue was confusing. Morgan returned to Rudy Van Gelder's a mere day after these tracks were taped for the first of two quintet sessions organized by tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley for Savoy. Some of that music appeared on a Savoy album picturing Morgan and his Gillespie-model trumpet alone in the cover photo. INTRODUCING LEE MORGAN, blared the title, with Hank Mobley's Quintet added in small print. Whether this influenced producer Alfred Lion in choosing his own title for Morgan's true introduction is unclear, but the original Blue Note LP did offer the alternative Presenting Lee Morgan on its back cover.

While Morgan recorded no original compositions on any of these first studio visits, Lion clearly gave the trumpeter more direct input in terms of a front line partner and the program. C. Sharpe's later recorded appearances can be counted on the fingers of one hand, yet until his death in 1990, he was intermittently on the periphery of the jazz scene, often in the company of his wife, vocalist Chinalin Sharpe. The rhythm section, which had been heard as a unit two weeks earlier on the J. R. Monterose album Leonard Feather mentions, looks more like Lion's call, despite the inclusion of another Philadelphian in its midst. Comparing this trio with the Hank Jones/Doug Watkins/Art Taylor unit on Savoy underscores the more assertive rhythmic feel that had already become a Blue Note trademark.

Morgan gave particular distinction to this and his next three collections on Blue Note through his emphasis on original material from talented young writers, especially one particular hometown friend. Benny Golson would ultimately contribute 14 compositions to these early Morgan dates, including such classics as "Whisper Not" and "I Remember Clifford." His offerings here reflect the influence of two important modern writers; his early boss, Tadd Dameron, and early section mate, Gigi Gryce. The 42-bar form (10/10/8/14) on "Reggie of Chester" is a sign of Golson's ability to make unusual structures sound logical, Two more Owen Marshall scores also appear on Morgan's next album, but Marshall disappeared after contributing a few more tunes to albums by Art Blakey, Chet Baker, and Philly Joe. This session's ballad "The Lady" is not to be confused with the Rudy Stephenson opus Morgan blew so beautifully on his 1965 album The Rumproller.

Of the remaining titles, "Roccus" was the first track Horace Silver recorded for Blue Note (with Lou Donaldson in June 1952) and his first composition to appear on the label. Donald Byrd's "Little T," heard in two takes, has a history as convoluted as any Golson composition. The composer first recorded the melody as "The New Message" on a Jazz Messengers session the previous June, along with a completely different theme called "L'il T." "The New Message" then became "Little T" here and on the 1957 Kenny Drew disc This Is New. The tune originally called "L'il T" returned on the Art Blakey's Ritual under its original title but as "The Third" on the Byrd/Art Farmer Prestige joust Two Trumpets and the Monterose Blue Note date. The master take of " Little T" here was the first version to be released, while the alternate track first appeared on a 1995 Mosaic boxed set. The alternate is the superior take, despite hesitant moments in both theme choruses and during Morgan's first solo. The Sharpe solo is his best on record, with a brighter tone and dodging accents that recall Sahib Shihab with Thelonious Monk. Morgan is muted in the beautiful second solo, and Ware's statements are a treat. This take, with its variety of new insights, is as far from superfluous as an alternate can get.

Lee Morgan clearly fulfilled the precocious promise on display here, and it takes nothing away from the 18-year-old's achievement to acknowledge that this is clearly a freshman effort. Clifford Brown's imprint is particularly clear on these early performances. Still, Morgan is supremely confident, rhythmically adept, willing to put his technique to the test, and (despite excessive quoting that infects his fellow soloists as well) a convincing soloist on the ballad. The need for seasoning may account for producer Lion's preference for more detailed sextet settings on the next three Morgan albums. It was not until his fifth collection, The Cooker, that the trumpeter returned to the more open blowing terrain that would become his forte.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2007