Lee Morgan: His Life, Music and Culture

by Tom Perchard

This is the first biography of the jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan (1938-72). He was a prodigy: recruited to Dizzy Gillespie's big band while still a teenager, joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers not much after, by his early-20s Morgan had played on four continents and dozens of albums. The trumpeter would go on to cultivate a personal and highly influential style, and to make records - most notably The Sidewinder - which would sell amounts almost unheard of in jazz. While what should have been Morgan's most successful years were hampered by a heroin addiction, the ascendant black liberation movement of the late-60s gave the musician a new, political impulse, and he returned to the jazz scene to become a vociferous campaigner for black musicians' rights and representation. But Morgan's personal life remained troubled, and during a fight with his girlfriend at a New York club, he was shot and killed at age 33. Although Lee Morgan lived and died in sensational style, the story told in this book doesn't just stumble between stages, studios, bars and needles; such a narrative couldn't do justice to the richness of the trumpeter's music, nor to the culture from which it came. Here, then, the events of Morgan's life are presented not just as items of biography, but also as points of departure for wider historical investigations that aim to situate the musician and his contemporaries in changing aesthetic, social and economic contexts. The work draws on many original interviews with Morgan's colleagues and friends, as well as extensive archival research and critical engagement with the music itself.

Genres: Music, Biography, Jazz

297 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Lisa Kekaula]

If you know or care about Lee Morgan, jazz trumpeter extraordinaire - this is a book for you. This the most comprehensive book I have found about Lee. Actually, it is the only book I've been able to find about him, his talent, life and death. I loved it and wonder what the jazz world would be like if we had him with us a while longer.

[Tim]

http://prairieprogressive.com/?p=940

[Girard Bowe]

A tough read. The writing style is overwrought, and often tedious to read:

"This music allowed Morgan to indulge in riff-like improvisations while satisfying his need to maintain a certain narrative (pre)-construction. And it complicated definitions of of functional and modal harmony - definitions which, by virtue of most jazz musicians' propensity to imagine, spell, and articulate horizontal (modal) ideas in vertical (harmonic) terms, were already academic." I mean, WTF??!!

I disagree with many of Perchard's musical assessments. For example, he knocks Morgan's early records saying he repeats phrases and even entire choruses. Yes, Lee Morgan has a vocabulary of licks which crop up in various solos, but this is common among most jazz musicans, such as Charlie Parker, to name one. But Morgan is not repeating whole solo choruses, and he is not merely regurgitating memorized riffs.

What's given short shrift is that Morgan had an identifiable sound and style, even as a teenager. There are tons of talented trumpeters today, many of whom would be hard to identify in a blindfold test. Put on a Lee Morgan record from his teen years, and you know instantly who it is. Not to mention, John Coltrane is not going to put an immature soloist on one of his albums. At age 19, Morgan just kills on Blue Train.

I also take issue with Perchard's characterization of solos he apparently doesn't like:

". . . peppered with Morgan's half-valve timbral effects in a manner that reduces idiosyncrasy to trademark, the technique introduced for its own sneering novelty rather than as a diversion or confusion of an ongoing line of thought. . ."

OK, maybe he meant "continuation" instead of "confusion," but still, who writes like this about a jazz solo?! How does he get in Morgan's head, decades after Morgan's death in 1972, to make this conclusion? More bad writing and specious judgments. The book is rife with these.

The sad details of Morgan's life are not airbrushed. He was a heroin addict, probably starting at 17 or 18 when he was part of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, up to maybe his early 30s, when he was on methadone to combat the habit. He died when his common law wife shot him dead in a NYC club at the age of 33. The documentary about his death, I Called Him Morgan, is well worth watching.

So, why 3 stars? Perchard did a lot of research, so in addition to the details of Morgan's musical career and personal life, he also interviewed many of his fellow musicians, who are quoted quite liberally throughout. Lastly, it's Lee Morgan, who is in my pantheon of jazz trumpet favorites, along with Freddie Hubbard and Miles.

[E-Ratic Wizard]

Overextends himself in some places but is a thoroughly researched biography (mostly). For example, his coverage of Search For The New Land spans one page yet he dedicates an entire chapter to jazz criticism. And specifically white jazz critics. He has a bone to pick with great jazz writers like Leonard Feather, Ira Gitler, and Nat Hentoff. However, Perchard doesn't even manage to justify these beliefs to himself at times. Not above treating his informed opinion as fact when the truth is unclear.