BLP 1590

Lee Morgan - Candy

Released - March 1958

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, November 18, 1957
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Sonny Clark, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Art Taylor, drums.

tk.4 Since I Fell For You
tk.7 Personality

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, February 2, 1958
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Sonny Clark, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Art Taylor, drums.

tk.5 Who Do You Love, I Hope
tk.9 Candy
tk.12 C.T.A.
tk.14 All The Way

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Candy	Mack David, Alex J. Kramer, John Whitney Kramer	02/02/1958
Since I Fell For You	Buddy Johnson	18/11/1957
C.T.A	Jimmy Heath	02/02/1958
Side Two
All The Way	Sammy Cahn, James Van Heusen	02/02/1958
Who Do You Love, I Hope	Irving Berlin	02/02/1958
Personality	Johnny Burke, James Van Heusen	18/11/1957

Credits

Cover Photo:	EMERICK BRONSON
Cover Design:	REID MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	ROBERT LEVIN

Liner Notes

THE constantly developing, increasingly potent blend that is Lee Morgan’s, encounters a difficult-challenging problem in this album. The problem of being the only horn and of sustaining a consistent interest-holding groove throughout an entire LP. That he accomplishes this is a credit not only to the sympathetic, elastically-forceful rhythm section of Sonny Clark, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor, but, more important, to his own inventiveness, wit, innate capacity to swing and effective range and sense of dynamics. As his latest effort this is, logically, Morgan’s best because as he is chronologically evolving out of adolescence (he is twenty years old at this writing) so is his musical conception becoming more mature. That he still has much more living to do — more life and playing experience to absorb, is true, but he has reached a point, which this album indicates, that stands on its own, as well as suggesting the even higher level of achievement he will undoubtably attain.

I think the most important thing this album illustrates is the beginning of an assimilation, by Morgan, of the many influences he has been exposed to. It would seem that he is emerging from the period of unassimilated eclecticism, which most young aspirants in any vocation naturally pass through, and is developing a personal direction — his own style, from what he is coming to understand, rather than simply accept, and what his own perspectives ore infusing. Morgan, born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1938, was attending “workshop” sessions at Music City by the time he was in his middle teens, meeting, and sometimes playing with, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown and Miles Davis and it is these three men who have made the most obvious impression on him. His abundant technical resources place him (in that respect) in a class with Gillespie and Brown and the basics of his approach are, primarily, related to them. But Morgan, though his lines are generally multi-noted and projected within a highly flexible verticle range, often phrases in the manner of Davis and occasionally modulates his sonority to a level that is strikingly similar to that of Davis. In a sense what he is doing, I think, is indicating the possibility of synthesizing the often contradictory trumpet concepts of which he has been informed by incorporating the lyrical, introspective characteristics of the Davis approach with the virtuoso, outwardly-heated characteristics of the “school” which Gillespie has animated.

This album, comprised, in part, of such improbable tunes as Candy, Who Do You Love I Hope, All The Way and Personality affords Morgan fresh material with which to work and he handles it with a good deal of warmth and humor. I think Candy, Hope and Personality best exemplify these qualities. He is wittily engaging on these numbers — approaching the lines with the relaxed, easy-”cute” manner that they call for and also delivering particularly effective solo choruses on the changes that are openly intense and vigorous, but not out of context. All The Way and Since I Fell For You showcase his more lyrical capacities. On these he exhibits his growing sense of restraint and control and his solos, significantly, maintain a close relationship with the melody. Jimmy Heath’s CTA (also recorded for this label by Miles Davis — BLP 1501) is a blowing vehicle on which Lee is particularly vociferous.

Throughout all this, Clark, Watkins and Taylor, as mentioned before, offer considerably agile assistance.

Clark, was born in Herminie, Pennsylvania on July 21, 1931. He was studying the piano by the time he was four and, while still in high school, played around the Pittsburgh area with teen-age dance bands. In 1951 he migrated west with an older brother and worked with Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Art Former, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Art Pepper, etc. before embarking on an extensive two and o half year tour of the United States and Europe with Buddy DeFranco in 1954. Following the DeFranco gig he played with the “Light House All-Stars” for a while, finally returning east with Dinah Washington in April of 1957. In New York he has worked with J.R. Monterose, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Mingus, his own trio, etc., and has been the object of a great deal of faith on the port of Blue Note’s Alfred Lion who has employed him on o welter of recent dates. Clark is a perfect example of “today’s” pianist in the sense that his style contains, in varying degrees, elements of the approaches of Bud Powell, Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk — three of the contemporary-modern piano’s most influential progenitors.

Watkins was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 3, 1934. He attended Cass Technical High School along with Donald Byrd and Paul Chambers and worked with various local combos until he left Detroit with James Moody in 1953. After Moody he traveled with another Detroiter, pianist Barry Harris, before coming to and settling in New York in late summer of 1954. His first New York gigs were with Art Blakey’s “Jazz Messengers” which also included, at that time, Horace Silver, Kenny Dorham and Hank Mobley. More recently he has spent much of his time in the recording studio and in free-lance night club work. A talented young bassist with a strong rhythmic sense, Watkins is also a consistently stimulating soloist.

Art Taylor, born in New York City on April 6, 1929, studied privately with Chick Morrison before playing with Coleman Hawkins, Buddy DeFranco, Art Former, Gigi Gryce and George Wallington, among others in the early and middle fifties. The expatriation of Kenny Clarke several years ago, provided Taylor with much studio and club work which he might not otherwise hove received and he has proved worthy of his resultant ubiquitous exposure by developing into a steady “group” drummer with certain of the characteristics of Max Roach and Art Blakey.

Again I must say that in my opinion this is the finest album that Lee Morgan has recorded. All the significant elements of his conception at this point have been thrown into relief here and the quartet context provides the space for an extended view of these elements.

— ROBERT LEVIN

Cover Design by REID MILES
Photo by EMERICK BRONSON
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT CANDY

Trumpet-plus-rhythm quartet albums are always singled out for their lack of a second horn and their rarity, though Candy comes from an era when several leading brass soloists were employing the format. Portrait of Art Farmer (Contemporary) and Clark Terry's In Orbit (Riverside, with Thelonious Monk on piano) followed the second of the two sessions comprising the present disc by a few months; Kenny Dorham cut Quiet Kenny in 1959; and both Booker Little's self-titled disc on Time and Blue Mitchell's Blue's Moods followed in 1960. Of course, Chet Baker had fronted a quartet during his first four years as a leader; and Jonah Jones offered a variant on smooth jazz with the string of best-selling quartet titles he issued on Capitol in the late-'50s and early-'60s.

The instrumentation on Candy, while hardly unprecedented, was a bold setting for a young man who, when the album was completed, still remained six months shy of his twentieth birthday. This was Lee Morgan's sixth session in 15 months, and the last of his albums to appear in the Blue Note 1500 Series. As such, it documents his accelerated growth toward an individual voice, his command of an increasing array of moods, and his taste in assembling both bands and musical programs.

The compatibility of the four musicians makes the infrequency of their work together surprising, especially in the case of new Blue Note stars Morgan and Clark. For all their seemingly constant appearances at Rudy Van Gelder's studio during the period, the trumpeter and pianist would only record together on one other occasion, Tina Brooks's Minor Move session from March 1958. That was also the last time Morgan teamed with Doug Watkins, another ubiquitous presence who had but one other recorded encounter with Morgan (on Hank Mobley's November 1956 Savoy sessions). Art Taylor encountered Morgan more frequently, and in effect took Art Blakey's chair when Messengers alums Morgan, Wayne Shorter, and Bobby Timmons recorded under Morgan's name for Roulette in 1960. While neither the present quartet nor the rhythm section was ever heard outside the context of this album, producer Alfred Lion clearly appreciated the magic they made together, taking the unprecedented (at Blue Note) step of waiting ten weeks to complete the project.

"Since I Fell for You," "Personality," and the bonus track, "All at Once You Love Her," come from the November 18, 1957 date. The former, the most familiar title in this collection of anything-but-standards, features a brooding vamp that provides the foundation for much of Morgan's improvising. Clark dances through 16 bars, then transforms his concluding thought into an accompanying figure that carries the trumpeter through much of the final bridge. "'Personality" (by Burke—Van Heusen and not the Lloyd Price hit) has excellent support from Watkins, a trumpet solo with a third chorus filled with personal inflections, and one of Clark's medium-tempo gems of shifting accents. "All at Once," a lesser-known Rodgers and Hammerstein with a 40-bar, A-A-B-A-C melody, finds Morgan trading eight-bar phrases with Watkins, then fours with Taylor.

"Who Do You Love, I Hope, " another obscurity from a compositional mainstay, was attempted at the November date, but the issued take comes from the February 2, 1958 session. The similarity of its melodic turns and those of "All at Once" may explain why the latter was initially withheld from release. The funky introductory vamp and breaks behind the melody statement enhance a performance that feature half-valve effects in the trumpet solo and a Clark spot that, like many of his best, draw the disparate ideas together for a concluding stretch of unexpected logic. "Candy" finds Taylor in his finest Philly Joe Jones mode, and the sour seesaw opening of Morgan's solo is an extension of Clark's final idea. Jimmy Heath's "C.T.A." had been introduced by Miles Davis in 1953 (now on the RVG edition of Miles Davis, Vol. 2), and already covered by Chet Baker/Art Pepper and Taylor's own Wailers quartet with John Coltrane. The distinctive, downward-spiraling chord changes create a darker atmosphere than the lilting Tin pan Alley material, and are devoured by Morgan and Clark. "All the Way," the date's second Jimmy Van Heusen melody, is one of Morgan's most personal statements to this point in his career, and again finds Watkins making an important contribution without taking a solo.

Between the two sessions that comprise Candy, Dizzy Gillespie had broken up the big band that helped introduce Lee Morgan to the jazz world. Another Gillespie alumnus, Benny Golson, would bring Morgan into Art Blakey's reorganized Jazz Messengers in the summer of 1958, launching the second chapter in the trumpeter's legendary career.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2007