Lee Morgan
The Procrastinator

It had been ten years since the nineteen-year-old Lee Morgan arrived in New York from Philadelphia. It was 1957 when Dizzy Gillespie, who had the chance to meet a very young Lee Morgan when he passed through Philadelphia, sent Morgan money for the ticket so he could join him in the Big Apple and try to make the big leap.

That’s how Morgan joined Gillespie's band and at the same time entered the influential circle. Morgan came with a good reputation that preceded him: a reputation that was just waiting for the first opportunity to be cemented, and in fact, the first consecration took place one evening at Birdland, where, according to Nat Hentoff, a famous Jazz critic who was in the audience, Lee delivered a solo in Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia" that, according to Hentoff himself, literally left those present breathless. Ten years that saw the affirmation of this extraordinary trumpeter's talent, who died at only 33 in 1972 at the hands (armed) of his woman.

The 1967, the year when "The Procrastinator" saw the light, was also a socially tumultuous year, something that would not leave Morgan's sensitivity indifferent and which would lead him to engage in those very years; something that, however, was not something extemporaneous or without roots, since Morgan was born in a family with strong social, political, and religious commitment. On the musical side, Hard Bop, a movement that saw Morgan as one of its best representatives, was now waning; decline that would still give some last gasps which, although not listed among the classics of the genre, would still deliver very good records.

This record, first and foremost, besides being labeled Blue Note, is backed by Morgan’s comrades: Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone (already turning the tide with the second quintet of Miles Davis and ready to venture into Jazz/Rock and Fusion experiments that would come shortly after), Herbie Hancock on piano (an almost similar situation to that of Shorter), Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Ron Carter on double bass (also coming from Davis' court) and Billy Higgins on drums. The album opens with "The Procrastinator", a piece (written by Morgan) melodically very particular that deviates from the genre's standards, also because the vibraphone (an instrument that marked Morgan’s adolescence, for before taking up the trumpet, he was fascinated by the vibraphone, an instrument surely less "accessible" than the trumpet, and for this very reason abandoned in favor of the trumpet itself) by Hutcherson plays a very particular role in the piece's context, and because the vibraphone is not an instrument historically present in the Hard Bop field, the peculiarity is the element that distinguishes the evolution of the track. The track is the emblem of the album; Shorter’s performance is muscular, rich, loaded, typically Hard Bop. The vibraphone by Hutcherson, on the other hand, gives the theme an ethereal, hypnotic sound, almost like a lullaby, and a theme on which Morgan and Shorter will skillfully weave their phrases. On the other hand, Hancock will deliver a related and parallel performance, especially in the final beats, with a dreamy, fairytale, enigmatic phrasing, for an ending that, for some reason, reminds me of certain atmospheres of "Strange Days" by the Doors; an album curiously released in 1967 just like "The Procrastinator".

"Party Time" instead brings us back onto more canonical tracks, a piece that opens up to a Blues with a theme of sharp accents. Shorter, as the fine author he is, will bring his pen to sign an exotic and suffused jewel, namely "Rio", a fertile ground on which Shorter himself and Morgan give life to a smooth lyricism, soft and linear, yet at the same time sumptuous.

"The Procrastinator" is a truly great album by Lee Morgan, and therefore it should not be missed.