Lee Morgan
The Sidewinder

The celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the record label Blue Note will be in full swing in the United States. In Italy, at Feltrinelli megastores and Ricordi Media stores, listeners can join the festivities by purchasing the main CDs of the label at the price of 5.90 €. This way, they have the opportunity to bring home the masterpiece in question.

Lee Morgan was one of the leading artists of the label, given the remarkable number of recordings he made for it both under his own name and as a session man in the sixteen years of a career abruptly cut short when the thirty-four-year-old trumpeter was hit by gunshots fired by a jealous girlfriend outside a New York club where he was performing. And this is certainly the most famous of those recordings, owing to the worldwide success of the piece that opens and titles it; a sort of hypnotic rhythm'n'blues, which due to its perfect musical structure and extreme catchiness became one of the most famous jazz compositions of all time. A Chrysler commercial adopted it as a jingle, contributing to its worldwide popularity. And it's not an unfounded claim, far from it: the extraordinary solos of Morgan and the highly inspired Joe Henderson on tenor sax etch themselves into the ears of even those who are little accustomed to Afro-American improvised music. Indeed, for those intending to approach this music, I would suggest starting with the 10 minutes of "The Sidewinder".

The next composition is another small sonic miracle: "Totem Pole" is its name. Extraordinary is its rhythmic scan, based on a Latin tempo that unfolds into the most classic of 4/4 during its progression. And Morgan and Henderson, as before, work in sublime detail on the aforementioned scan. The empathy between the two winds is truly remarkable: this is testified by the subsequent "Gary's Notebook", a piece in pure hard-bop style with a truly compelling riff perfectly executed by the aforementioned gentlemen. Naturally, they work on an absolutely consistent base: the pianist Barry Harris harmonizes everything with sobriety, not playing a note more than necessary and giving free rein to our heroes' reeds, which interact perfectly with the bass of Bob Cranshaw and especially with the drums of Billy Higgins, truly superb in the circumstance. Just observe how effortlessly he maintains the waltz time of "Boy, what a night" to realize it, if the earlier tracks didn't suffice: tracks entirely composed by Morgan, also demonstrating his great writing ability, as well as being an exceptional trumpeter, a great virtuoso with a dense and rich sound, at ease in the most diverse sound contexts.

We'll return to it, calmly. For now, let's listen (or re-listen) to it in its much more famous recording, but equally among the best of his career, artistically speaking. Quantity (of copies sold) and quality (musical) in "The Sidewinder" are perfectly matched.