Lee Morgan: Complete Live @the Lighthouse

[ChandlersFord]

Anyone else picked up this comprehensive 8CD set? It’s currently on offer at Amazon for £36.99.

Working my way through it, it seems to be quite outstanding

[Joseph K]

Anyone else picked up this comprehensive 8CD set? It’s currently on offer at Amazon for £36.99.

Working my way through it, it seems to be quite outstanding

I'm intrigued - could you sell it to us a bit more i.e. what kind of jazz idiom is it?

[ChandlersFord]

I'm intrigued - could you sell it to us a bit more i.e. what kind of jazz idiom is it?

It’s fairly representative of where mainstream jazz was at in 1970. The double album from which the residency was culled has always been highly-regarded. Bernie Maupin (pre-Miles) plays tenor, flute and bass clarinet. Some great extended workouts, my favourite being Neophilia.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

It’s fairly representative of where mainstream jazz was at in 1970. The double album from which the residency was culled has always been highly-regarded. Bernie Maupin (pre-Miles) plays tenor, flute and bass clarinet. Some great extended workouts, my favourite being Neophilia.

CK/out the "Organissimo" jazz forum website in the States, under "Mosaic and other box sets". There are around twenty+ pages of informed discussion of these Morgan Lighthouse dates, previous releases, incomplete versions over time and the current sets. Even what Lee had for breakfast on the Thursday (made that up, but ...). Well worth a look.

[Ian Thumwood]

Quite staggered to find someone posting in the jazz forum who lives only about 2 miles from me!

I was intrigued by this 8 CD set. It seems a bargain but I was put off by the mention of the record having an "Ampeg" bass on it which made me fear the bass was going to sound rubbery like on a lot of the reordings from that decade.

Records like this album always strike me as being totally against the perceptions of what was going on in the 1970s. You tend to forget just how young Lee Morgan was even though he had a high profile as a teenaged sensation back in the late 1950s. He is probably the archetypal Hard Bop trumpeter who did not live long enough to have become influenced by Fusion. The music is supposed to be pretty aggressive Hard Bop but heading in the kind of direction of other Blue Note artists like Jackie McLean where you can sense the music evolving in to Post-Bop. I would be tempted but for the fact that there is a large element of repetition of material across the whole 8 CD set which does make it something that will appeal more to a completist. Not sure I would play the 8CDs regularly - probably best taken Cd by CD.

Morgan is typical for me as being one of those Hard Bop musicians whose life was cut short too young (shot by his lover) and who would have been absolutely feted in the 1980s. I think the same would be the case with Sonny Clark and Hank Mobley who has retired in the 1970s. I find Morgan to be a fabulously aggressive player . At the same time as this release, another live session under the leadership of Roy Brooks has been unearthered which allegedly has the same traits. When I was getting in to jazz in the early 1980s, this seemed to be a defining character of alot of Bop which seemed to try to become harder and more muscular. It is great that albums like the Morgan and Brooks efforts are being released to address the balance that jazz seemed to be split between Fusion and the avant garde at that time whereas the truth is the throughout the 1970s and mot of the 1980s, there were still musicians from the 1920s like Jabbo Smith and Benny Walters who were still touring the UK let alone musicians from the 30s and 40s. A lot of the Hard Bop musicians were still only middle -aged. The general narrative about the evolution of jazz tends to generalise although I suppose at the time I was listening to jazz for the first time. fusion was a dirty word.

[ChandlersFord]

Quite staggered to find someone posting in the jazz forum who lives only about 2 miles from me!

I was intrigued by this 8 CD set. It seems a bargain but I was put off by the mention of the record having an "Ampeg" bass on it which made me fear the bass was going to sound rubbery like on a lot of the reordings from that decade.

Records like this album always strike me as being totally against the perceptions of what was going on in the 1970s. You tend to forget just how young Lee Morgan was even though he had a high profile as a teenaged sensation back in the late 1950s. He is probably the archetypal Hard Bop trumpeter who did not live long enough to have become influenced by Fusion. The music is supposed to be pretty aggressive Hard Bop but heading in the kind of direction of other Blue Note artists like Jackie McLean where you can sense the music evolving in to Post-Bop. I would be tempted but for the fact that there is a large element of repetition of material across the whole 8 CD set which does make it something that will appeal more to a completist. Not sure I would play the 8CDs regularly - probably best taken Cd by CD.

Morgan is typical for me as being one of those Hard Bop musicians whose life was cut short too young (shot by his lover) and who would have been absolutely feted in the 1980s. I think the same would be the case with Sonny Clark and Hank Mobley who has retired in the 1970s. I find Morgan to be a fabulously aggressive player . At the same time as this release, another live session under the leadership of Roy Brooks has been unearthered which allegedly has the same traits. When I was getting in to jazz in the early 1980s, this seemed to be a defining character of alot of Bop which seemed to try to become harder and more muscular. It is great that albums like the Morgan and Brooks efforts are being released to address the balance that jazz seemed to be split between Fusion and the avant garde at that time whereas the truth is the throughout the 1970s and mot of the 1980s, there were still musicians from the 1920s like Jabbo Smith and Benny Walters who were still touring the UK let alone musicians from the 30s and 40s. A lot of the Hard Bop musicians were still only middle -aged. The general narrative about the evolution of jazz tends to generalise although I suppose at the time I was listening to jazz for the first time. fusion was a dirty word.

The versions played differ considerably from nigh to night. I listened on Spotify before buying, and it’s all good.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

German review of the big Vinyl LP box set. Looks good, I didn't know Yusef Lateef played on some of these, I thought it was all Bennie Maupin (who was a very strong tenor in those days). No problem with Jymie Merritt's electric bass from what I can hear, he was an excellent player on both. (The later horrible "elastic band" sound I associate with guys like Bob Magnusson and '70s studio recording/amplification techniques.)

Lotsa Lee...http://youtu.be/DM0xxi9U7h8

[ChandlersFord]

German review of the big Vinyl LP box set. Looks good, I didn't know Yusef Lateef played on some of these, I thought it was all Bennie Maupin (who was a very strong tenor in those days). No problem with Jymie Merritt's electric bass from what I can hear, he was an excellent player on both. (The later horrible "elastic band" sound I associate with guys like Bob Magnusson and '70s studio recording/amplification techniques.)

Lotsa Lee...http://youtu.be/DM0xxi9U7h8

The booklet makes no mention of a Lateef guest spot; it’s all Maupin. Jack de Johnette does play on one version of Speedball, though.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Ah OK, the German guy reviewing above said there was a great booklet picture of Lee and Yusef Lateef sitting on a wall. Now I've found it elsewhere, it's Lee and Bennie. I thought it sounded odd.

[Jazzrook]

Ah OK, the German guy reviewing above said there was a great booklet picture of Lee and Yusef Lateef sitting on a wall. Now I've found it elsewhere, it's Lee and Bennie. I thought it sounded odd.

Here's Lee Morgan with Yusef Lateef, Curtis Fuller, McCoy Tyner, Milt Hinton & Bobby Donaldson playing 'Judyful' from the hard-to-find 1960 album 'Images of Curtis Fuller':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=bipU5t0GvR8

JR
.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Didn't know that album at all! Nice stuff. Yusef pops up on (quite) a few recorddates that you wouldn't perhaps expect as a sideman.