I Called Him Morgan: The Death of a Blue Note Icon

Since the early days of New Orleans until the early 1950s of Hard Bop, trumpeters were the Gabriels of jazz. Just think of Louis Armstrong’s golden tone or the supernaturally fleet articulation of Dizzy Gillespie. Lee Morgan was cut from a different cloth. You could hear plenty of grease and snarling attitude in his horn. His devilish sound also scored him some unprecedented crossover success. Yet, his tragically public demise will always define his all too brief life story. Swedish documentarian Kasper Collin revisits the music and the man through the memories of the woman who shot him and the rival who stoked her jealousy in I Called Him Morgan (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Evidently, Morgan’s common law wife Helen never cared for the name Lee. Hence the title. We hear this directly from the source herself in the spectral-sounding audio tapes of an interview Ms. Morgan granted jazz radio host Larry Reni Thomas mere weeks before her death. Offering no excuses and seeking no sympathy, she tells her story matter-of-factly, but her overwhelming feelings of regret are immediately evident.

Collin (who also helmed the equally sensitive My Name is Albert Ayler) gives viewers the broad strokes of Morgan’s career, starting with his discovery in Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, his rise to prominence with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and his glory years as a vintage Blue Note Records recording artist. Along the way, label co-founders Albert Lion and Francis Wolff get their just due for producing the classic sessions that would largely define the Hard Bop style.

However, the film is really centered around a forensic reconstruction of Lee and Helen Morgan’s imploding relationship. Initially, all his musician friends thought they were a good match, giving her credit for helping Morgan get clean and supporting him while he rebuilt his reputation. Yet, the film takes a heavy turn when she starts to describe how their romance turned to resentment. Like a Hard Bop Rashomon, Collin presents the events of that fateful night both from her perspective and that of Judith Johnson, the third side of Morgan’s love triangle (albeit a rather chaste one, according to her testimony).

Indeed, Collin relates the events of that ill-fated blizzard-battered night with eerie inevitability. Frankly, ICHM is an unusually impressionistic film, featuring dreamy noir cityscapes that aptly match Collin’s musical selections. Clearly, he has a preference for Morgan’s modal period (tunes with gently explorative harmonies) over his boogaloos (in this context meaning up-tempo Hard Bop tunes constructed over a strong rhythmic vamp). In fact, Morgan’s greatest hit, “The Sidewinder” is never heard during the film. (In this case, “greatest hit” is no exaggeration for a tune featured in a Chrysler commercial.)

Shrewdly, Collin also incorporates quite a bit of Wolff’s celebrated session photography. In addition to many striking black-and-white images familiar to fans from classic Blue Note album covers, Collin includes some surprisingly light-hearted candid shots that should only further burnish Wolff’s photographic reputation.

Collin scored sit-downs with a number of Morgan’s contemporaries, including Wayne Shorter, his legendary bandmate in the Messengers, as well as his own prominent sidemen, including Billy Harper, Jymie Merritt, Larry Ridley, and Bennie Maupin. However, the great (and we do mean great) Harold Mabern, a born raconteur if ever there was one, is conspicuously but perhaps not surprisingly absent. Reportedly, he still found it difficult to discuss Morgan’s death four decades after the fact, so presumably his feelings have not changed (which we should respect).

Regardless, ICHM is a starkly stylish and deeply humane film. It is that rare bird among music documentaries that has such considerable merit as a film in its own right, it should assure continuing awareness for Morgan’s music. Very highly recommended, I Called Him Morgan opens this Friday (3/24) in New York, at the FSLC’s Munroe Film Center.

NYFF ’16: I Called Him Morgan

Since the early days of New Orleans until the early 1950s of Hard Bop, trumpeters were the Gabriels of jazz. Just think of Louis Armstrong’s golden tone or the supernaturally fleet articulation of Dizzy Gillespie. Lee Morgan was cut from a different cloth. You could hear plenty of grease and snarling attitude in his horn. His devilish sound also scored him some unprecedented crossover success. Yet, his tragically public demise will always define his all too brief life story. Swedish documentarian Kasper Collin revisits the music and the man through the memories of the woman who shot him and the rival who stoked her jealousy in I Called Him Morgan (trailer here), which screens during the 54^th New York Film Festival.

Evidently, Morgan’s common law wife Helen never cared for the name Lee. Hence the title. We hear this directly from the source herself in the spectral-sounding audio tapes of an interview Ms. Morgan granted jazz radio host Larry Reni Thomas mere weeks before her death. Offering no excuses and seeking no sympathy, she tells her story matter-of-factly, but her overwhelming feelings of regret are immediately evident.

Collin (who also helmed the equally sensitive My Name is Albert Ayler) gives viewers the broad strokes of Morgan’s career, starting with his discovery in Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, his rise to prominence with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and his glory years as a vintage Blue Note Records recording artist. Along the way, label co-founders Albert Lion and Francis Wolff get their just due for producing the classic sessions that would largely define the Hard Bop style.

However, the film is really centered around a forensic reconstruction of Lee and Helen Morgan’s imploding relationship. Initially, all his musician friends thought they were a good match, giving her credit for helping Morgan get clean and supporting him while he rebuilt his reputation. Yet, the film takes a heavy turn when she starts to describe how their romance turned to resentment. Like a Hard Bop Rashomon, Collin presents the events of that fateful night both from her perspective and that of Judith Johnson, the third side of Morgan’s love triangle (albeit a rather chaste one, according to her testimony).

Indeed, Collin relates the events of that ill-fated blizzard-battered night with eerie inevitability. Frankly, ICHM is an unusually impressionistic film, featuring dreamy noir cityscapes that aptly match Collin’s musical selections. Clearly, he has a preference for Morgan’s modal period (tunes with gently explorative harmonies) over his boogaloos (in this context meaning up-tempo Hard Bop tunes constructed over a strong rhythmic vamp). In fact, Morgan’s greatest hit, “The Sidewinder” is never heard during the film. (In this case, “greatest hit” is no exaggeration for a tune featured in a Chrysler commercial.)

Shrewdly, Collin also incorporates quite a bit of Wolff’s celebrated session photography. In addition to many striking black-and-white images familiar to fans from classic Blue Note album covers, Collin includes some surprisingly light-hearted candid shots that should only further burnish Wolff’s photographic reputation.

Collin scored sit-downs with a number of Morgan’s contemporaries, including Wayne Shorter, his legendary bandmate in the Messengers, as well as his own prominent sidemen, including Billy Harper, Jymie Merritt, Larry Ridley, and Bennie Maupin. However, the great Harold Mabern, a born raconteur if ever there was one, is conspicuously but perhaps not surprisingly absent. Reportedly, he still found it difficult to discuss Morgan’s death four decades after the fact, so presumably his feelings have not changed (which we should respect).

Regardless, ICHM is a starkly stylish and deeply humane film. It is that rare bird among music documentaries that has such considerable merit as a film in its own right, it should assure continuing awareness for Morgan’s music. Very highly recommended, I Called Him Morgan is far and away the top priority film at this year’s NYFF, which will screen it this Sunday (10/2) at the Walter Reade and Monday (10/3) at the Francesca Beale.

Lee Morgan

Lee Morgan: His Life, Music and Culture
By Tom Perchard
Equinox
1-84553-205-8

Lee Morgan may not be as widely recognized as Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington, but hardcore collectors rank him highly. For them Tom Perchard’s Lee Morgan, a biography and analysis of his music will come as a welcome publication.

Morgan is closely identified with the classic years of the Blue Note label, having recorded for them as a leader and as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, as well as a sideman for other BN artists. In truth, the Val Wilmer cover photo is somewhat jarring, since Francis Wolff’s photos have largely defined the Morgan’s image for many.

While Blue Note is revered by many jazz collectors as a rare artist friendly label, Perchard takes a somewhat revisionist view. For instance, he is somewhat critical of Blue Note’s music publishing arrangements, though he does quote label co-founder Alfred Lion’s explanation in an interview with Michael Cuscuna:

“if you had the publishing, then you saved 50 per cent on what you had to pay [in royalties] on the song. And that would increase your profit margin. None of those [producers] ever thought those tunes would be worth anything; it was just a way to keep the unit cost per LP down.” (p. 73 brackets in Perchard)

As successful as Morgan was with The Sidewinder, much of his life has been obscure to his fans. For many it will be a revelation that in 1961 Morgan suffered a Chet Baker style assault targeting his teeth, and as a trumpeter, his livelihood by extension. Perchard speculates:

“Perhaps Morgan’s teeth were knocked out as punishment for this absence [from the studio while under contract to a notorious producer], a punishment after all befitting the supposed crime. Or perhaps that absence was in part due to Morgan’s teeth having been knocked out by someone else, a consequence of addiction as some associates suggested.” (p. 137)

Perchard reveals Morgan would undergo a similar assault again in 1969. As a heroin addict, like many of his colleagues, Morgan would be in close contact with unsavory characters. He would also partake of alcohol and his habits would be reflected in the titles of his compositions. “Speed Ball” would become one of his more popular tunes. Perchard also offers tantalizing reports of unknown thematically related compositions:

“Morgan had copyrighted a collection of songs, all of which went unrecorded, and all but two of which were named after drinks and drinking: ‘Bloody Mary’, ‘Liquid Breakfast’ and so on.” (p. 152)

Indeed there is much in Perchard’s book that gives fresh insight into Lee Morgan and his music. The only drawback is the periodic PC hand-wringing which intrudes into the narrative. We are treated to an introduction of Perchard pounding the mean streets of Morgan’s Philadelphia neighborhood, fretting:

“had those people known what I was doing, perhaps they would have looked over their shoulders, shaken their heads and thought to themselves that, having lost much else, they were now about to lose possession of another black memory.” (p. 4)

It is all right and proper to have sensitivity for how various communities receive your work, but Perchard should have more confidence. After all, in the almost thirty five years since Morgan’s death, he is the first to tackle the trumpeter’s biography. More to the point, restricting academic or journalistic inquiry has the effect of denying the universality of Morgan’s music, which does serve the memory of the man or his music.

Despite a Perchard’s penchant for editorializing, there is much to recommend Lee Morgan. As popular as “The Sidewinder” and his other Blue Note boogaloos had been (by jazz standards), Morgan the man has been a cipher, more so than even Miles Davis, for dearth of information. For that, Perchard’s Lee Morgan is a welcome corrective.

(Reviewed from galley.)