Lee Morgan arrived at a pivotal moment in jazz, when the beginnings of hard bop showed listeners just how adventurous the genre could be. Born in Philadelphia in 1938, Morgan displayed prodigious talent from an early age, picking up the trumpet as a teenager and quickly earning the admiration of Dizzy Gillespie, who invited him into his big band before Morgan had turned 18. By the time he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, he had become one of the defining young voices of his generation: technically dazzling, melodically direct and fearless in his pursuit of swing.
Morgan possessed a rare gift for balancing virtuosity with accessibility. His trumpet carried the brilliance of Clifford Brown, the swagger of Miles Davis and a personality that was unmistakably his own. Whether delivering blistering solos with the Jazz Messengers or leading his own Blue Note sessions, Morgan played with an urgency that felt both deeply rooted in Black musical traditions and eager to push them forward. His landmark 1964 album, “The Sidewinder,” became an unlikely crossover hit, proving that sophisticated jazz could still capture a broad audience without sacrificing its artistic integrity.
But Morgan’s story extends far beyond a single recording. Across albums like “Search for the New Land,” “Cornbread” and “The Procrastinator,” he revealed an artist willing to evolve, embracing modal harmony and post-bop abstraction. His influence can be heard in generations of trumpeters who followed, through his formidable technique, harmonic clarity and the joy embedded in his phrasing.
Though Morgan died in 1972 at 33, his music continues to radiate. Listen closely and you’ll hear a musician who embodied jazz at its most exhilarating. Read on and explore our playlist for an introduction to Lee Morgan’s enduring legacy through the recordings, collaborators and unforgettable performances that continue to define his remarkable career, and be sure to leave your own favorites in the comments.
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‘Dat Dere,’ Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
Kasper Collin, filmmaker
It was when I found and watched this YouTube clip with Lee Morgan playing “Dat Dere” from a 1961 Tokyo TV broadcast that I decided to try and make a film about him. His solo here was a knockout for me. I’d never heard anyone play trumpet like that. I didn’t know much more about him than “The Sidewinder” and “Blue Train,” but this made me discover there was this searching artist beyond “The Sidewinder,” this brilliant improviser and composer behind such recordings as “Search for the New Land.” Looking back on the eight years’ journey of making “I Called Him Morgan,” I think what I’m most satisfied with is the selection and presentation of the music in it. It opens with “Search for the New Land”; 85 minutes later it ends with Lee’s full solo from this 1961 clip. The film was in a way built musically and emotionally toward this clip.
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‘Easy Living’
Laura Bibbs, trumpeter
A sense of wonderment washes over me when I hear Lee Morgan improvise. One of my favorite Morgan songs is “Easy Living” from his album “Expoobident.” He is always identifiable by his sound, distinct facility over the horn and clever improvisational language. Morgan’s stream of consciousness can be felt listening along to this solo, as it moves through subtle and sometimes abrupt changes in mood, color, tone and feel. When beginning a new statement, his phrasing and stately gestures bring the listener along with his train of thought. This solo showcases Morgan’s ability to be simultaneously exuberant and alluring, moving through time and styles effortlessly. Just as you’re following a line, his smooth warm tone shifts suddenly to bright colorful articulations, then a stark contrasting moment begins as if a declaration in a Haydn cadenza. When I listen to Lee Morgan, I’m reminded of why I fell in love with playing the trumpet.
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‘Desert Moonlight’
Arnetta Johnson, artist and trumpeter
There’s something special that happens when you hear a song for the first time and it completely captures you. The music takes the moment, the experience, and places it in a frame, creating a piece you’ll always see whenever you hit play. That is what Lee Morgan’s “Desert Moonlight” does for me. It is storytelling in the form of sound. Lee has the rhythm section lay down the groove and then the melody moves across, subtly taking us into a hard flow. Harmonies ring and then the song tips away, forcing you to stay. It feels like you’re there. It’s dark, the land is wide, stretching out deep as a dream. It’s warm, with the moon sharing the perfect glow as one partakes in a soothing beverage as a smoky incense aroma pirouettes by. Lee Morgan’s tone and nuance always do it for me.
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‘Search for the New Land’
DJ Pari, producer
Like a lot of jazz fans, I was first drawn to Lee Morgan through his earlier work as a sideman and the sheer force of his hard-bop playing. But “The Sidewinder” made me hear him differently. It was his first Blue Note session built entirely around his own compositions, and “Search for the New Land,” recorded just two months later, takes that next step with even greater assurance.
The title track is the piece I return to most often. It takes its time, and that’s part of what makes it so compelling. Morgan leaves plenty of space, and each solo grows naturally out of the one before it. Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, Reggie Workman and Billy Higgins is about as strong a Blue Note lineup as you can assemble. Green’s guitar, in particular, gives the performance a warmth and texture unlike anything else in Morgan’s catalog. I still get goose bumps when the band settles into that opening mood.
After the recording session wrapped in early 1964, this album sat on the shelf for nearly two years after the unexpected commercial success of “The Sidewinder,” as Blue Note understandably wanted more records with that same crossover appeal. Instead, “Search for the New Land” became something more enduring, a patient, lyrical statement from an artist finding his own voice that still sounds remarkably fresh more than 60 years later.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
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‘Moanin’,’ Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
Riley Mulherkar, trumpeter and bandleader
You’d be hard-pressed to find a jazz musician who can’t sing along to every note of Lee Morgan’s solo on “Moanin’,” with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers. From his opening four-note motif to his closing handoff to the saxophonist Benny Golson, Morgan gives a master class of a solo in just two minutes.
I love to imagine what the feeling in the studio must have been at that moment. Lee Morgan was the youngest one in the band (only 20 years old!) and here he is, coming out swingin’ on the very first solo of the tune. Fearless and full of swagger. There’s so much charisma and wit in every phrase he plays — it’s exactly what I think of when I think of Lee Morgan, and it’s exactly what I think of when I think of jazz.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
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‘The Procrastinator’
Alden Hellmuth, saxophonist and bandleader
I first heard Lee Morgan in high school and really fell in love with his distinct sound on records like “Tom Cat” and “Lee-Way.” A few years later, I discovered “The Procrastinator,” which was compositionally so different from the Lee Morgan records I had heard before. The title track opens the album with a haunting melody that climbs and unfolds into that classic Blue Note swing, laying the foundation for Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Billy Higgins, one of my favorite Blue Note lineups, to do their thing. I love how this track, and the entire record, has such an effortless and undeniable groove. There are so many subtleties, and every listen reveals something new, but ultimately it just feels so good.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
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‘Angela’
Modibo Keita, musician and curator
My favorite song by Lee Morgan is “Angela” — written as an ode to Angela Davis during her incarceration in 1970. “Angela” was recorded as part of the session that resulted in the trumpeter’s last studio album. This piece, to me, beautifully displays the artistic freedom with which Morgan operated and the creative path he was on before his time was cut unexpectedly short. The blend between Grachan Moncur III’s lush sound on the trombone, Billy Harper’s echoes on the tenor and the delicate flute interventions by Bobbi Humphrey contextualize Lee Morgan’s signature tone in a landscape that feels sonically different from what we are used to from him. This piece has cinematic and open-ended textures while still being an assertive and unapologetic statement. Morgan and the ensemble shine here with an unusual display of restraint that feels hypnotic and captivating.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
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‘Hocus-Pocus’
Kevin Oliver Jr., saxophonist and composer
My introduction to Lee Morgan’s music as a young music student was his album “The Sidewinder.” Lee contributed to so many classic recordings over the course of his career. I discovered “The Sidewinder” as I was first falling in love with improvisation and all of its elements: the playfulness, the soul, the conscious use of space, the clever execution of harmony and everything in between. His tune “Hocus-Pocus” encompasses all of what makes music worth listening to. The melody is joyful and singsong. Lee’s solo is absolutely perfect with no note out of place. He fully encompasses the spirit of the song while simultaneously infusing his trademark soulfulness and musical intelligence. His solo is sandwiched in between two incredible solos by the grandmasters Joe Henderson and Barry Harris. This record is magic and I could listen to it all day.
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‘Mesabi Chant’
Savannah Harris, drummer, producer and arranger
The trumpet is a heavy crown. I discovered this early, in a household where Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard were reigning kings. I thought of Lee as an almost mythical figure, bright and brilliant beyond his years, always right at that precarious edge, looking over.
Morgan’s “Mesabi Chant” is bright and acidic, a little chaotic, a little unpolished. Those first notes are so sharp, so incisive; then a brooding undercurrent takes over during the bridge, time slows, and then quickly pushes you out the back door. Lee’s choruses are assertive, rippling, whizzing right past you. The drummer Charlie Persip runs right behind him, egging him on with phrases that taunt and push. There’s an urgency in everyone’s playing, except Benny Golson, who moves through his own composition with the assuredness of he who designed the labyrinth.
At just 19 years old when this album was released, in 1957, I imagine Lee running chest forward, trying to navigate his first years of trumpet stardom on the heels of Clifford Brown’s tragic and untimely death. Whether or not he could sense the weight of time in his own life at that point, I’m not sure. To me, Lee always played with a level of intention and sincerity as if that next phrase could be his last, and on “Mesabi Chant” I hear a prodigy in process, finding his way through it all.
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‘Our Man Higgins’
Nicole McCabe, saxophonist and composer
A true gem of ’60s jazz, Lee Morgan wrote “Our Man Higgins” to honor his longtime collaborator, the drummer Billy Higgins. This triumphant romp appears on Morgan’s acclaimed album “Cornbread,” notable for premiering his classic composition “Ceora.” The melody makes captivating use of the “whole-tone scale,” whose symmetrical tones create dissonant yet melodic tension. Higgins shines here with drum solos punctuating the angular horn riffs. My favorite part is the improvising, where soloists start blowing over augmented chords that transition into a classic 12-bar blues. It feels like Jackie McLean, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley and Herbie Hancock are searching for unique shapes and melodic structures over the complex harmony, riding this exploratory spirit into the more comfortable blues form. This song screams fun, a distinctive take on classic jazz blues that doubles as a great introduction to the whole-tone scales’ daring harmonic territory.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
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‘Inner Passions Out’
Or Bareket, bassist, composer and bandleader
Lee Morgan’s later work is a visceral document of awakening and expansion. His final recorded statements are a master class in bandleadership as collaboration: “The Last Session” includes none of Morgan’s own writing, but extensively showcases his bandmates’ compositions, with Morgan’s piercing tone and presence as a sonic pillar, centering and facilitating the band’s energy. “Inner Passions Out” by the drummer Freddie Waits, the final track on this album, is my personal favorite for its audacity and scope.
Throughout its 17-plus minutes, I hear revolution: an embracing of the full spectrum of idiosyncratic human expression through rhythm and pitch. It rejects the cookie-cutter forms, clockwork rhythms and other notions of standardization that dominated the world Morgan and his peers are leaving behind. They are conjuring a new world through sound, and teaching us music as the practice and discipline of human freedom. I try to learn this lesson better every day.
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The post 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Lee Morgan appeared first on New York Times.
