Customer Reviews

Lee Morgan: His Life, Music And Culture (Popular Music History)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This to me, is a rather troubling book. I had very much looked forward to reading this since Lee Morgan was one of my favorite trumpet players. Particularly during his exciting days as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. The author, a 30 year old college professor from England and contributor to The Wire magazine has obviously put a tremendous amount of effort into the project. He meticulously has footnoted every chapter. He conducted close to 40 personal interviews with people who knew the subject. He further cites a bibliography of sources that amounts to more than eleven pages. It is no secret that Lee Morgan was a Black African American. He was born in Philadelphia in 1938 and was shot to death at Slug's jazz club in NYC during February 1972. So his life history was probably not unique from other's of his race during that time frame. Except, of course, for his genius as a jazz star. My sense is that the author mentions Black or African American on virtually every page of the book. Frequently, multiple times. The book is every bit as much about the authors historical and sociological interpretations of race relations in the U.S. as it is about Lee Morgan's jazz career. Really, it seems to me to be very much an outsiders view that was much influenced by some of his material sources. While it's true that towards the end of his career Lee Morgan became involved with what could be called Black Nationalism. That certainly was not the central focus of his entire life. My purpose in buying this book was to learn more about Lee Morgan's musical life. Not to be bombarded page after page by the authors perceived political insights.It is my sense that most readers came to this book because of Lee Morgan's contributions to jazz. If readers are interested in Black politics there are multitudes of books on that topic. I am not upset that the author mentioned politics in this book. Because, as stated previously in this review, during the latter part of his career the subject did in fact become a political activist. The problem here is that the author emphasized the political content far out of real life proportion thruout the entire book. So, reluctantly,and in spite of much innovative research, it is my view that Lee Morgan deserved a biography more concentrated on his musical achievements than this work.

This book left me a bit disturbed. There is very little of the Lee Morgan I got to know. I appreciated Tom Perchard's research in his attempt to find out what it was in Lee's background that made him the musician he was to become. However, his time would have been better spent trying to find out what was in the water they were drinking in Philadelphia that produced all those great musicians, Clifford Brown, Trane, Tyner, Timmons, the Heath brothers, Ray Bryant, Charlie Persip and Dizzy, or he could have attributed his talent to the famous "Jess Grew".
The Lee Morgan I got to know was a fun loving young musician. When I saw him with Dizzy's big band(late 50s) at Sparrows beach in Md. That band had Quincy Jones, Wynton Kelly, Charlie Persip and Joe Gordon. When I arrived at the beach the first thing I saw was Lee and Persip running out of the water with inner tubes trying to get on the bandstand before Dizzy started to play. Several years later I was in a bar next to Birdland (60s) and Philly Joe Jones was telling Art Taylor that he had just saw Lee sitting on the curb without any shoes on so he went back in the house got his bedroom slippers and gave them to Lee. My next vivid experience with Lee(late 60s-until he died) came when as business manager for the Left Bank Jazz Society, we presented Lee in concert on Howard's campus. At that concert before a sold out auditorium Lee received a standing ovation before a single note was played. That concert was reviewed by the late Ralph Matthews in the Washington Afro-American and contains some the quotes about Lee that Perchard uses in his book. Booking Lee Morgan kept the LBJS afloat for about 3 years. His concerts always sold out thus providing us with seed money to book other artists. I once offered to increase his fee for future shows but he said, "everything is cool as is, just keep the other bands coming". As a trumpeter player Lee had a lot of fire, and was a crowd pleaser. He was also a very good band leader who took care of the business side of things, was always on time for the shows made sure he got deposits before the gig and always had first class musicians performing with him. The tragedy of his death, like so many others of his era, was that he had gained all this life experience,good and bad, and musical knowledge at a very young age, had given a lot back to the music, and still had so much to share.

Perchard gives a detailed account of Lee Morgan's life and music in the context of the jazz scene in general from the fifties to seventies. Lee Morgan afficianodos will enjoy the descriptions of many of Lee's recordings although they may not always agree with the musical evaluation by Perchard. For example, not everyone would agree with the description of Morgan in "The Big Beat" of 1960 as raw, agressive, with an unkind sense of humour; it is not clear why this is discussed by Perchard as a development towards greater rawness AFTER the description of "Roots and Herbs", recorded in 1961, as a peak in accomplishments of the same five Jazz Messengers: Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Timmons, Jimmiy Merritt, and Art Blakey. Be that as it may, someone who admires this type of jazz will be captivated by this book and go back listening to recordings to compare own notes with those of Perchard.

I must admit that I did learn a bit of factual information about Lee Morgan From Tom Perchard's book, but what I really came away with was the author's sociological theories about race, drugs, and growing up in the jazz music business in the 1950s & 1960s. This was fascinating and intriguing reading for a few pages but by the end of the book I really had more of an idea about the author's viewpoints than any sort of idea about what Lee Morgan was actually like. Maybe someday we'll get a biography about Morgan that's actually more about Morgan and less about the author's sociological insights.

Ditto to what "Hardbopper" said. This book has barely anything to do with the great Lee Morgan - there is biographical information, yes, but even the author admits himself amid one of his many political discussions that "this is not the definitive Lee Morgan biography." He goes into several tangents about racism, blacks, politics, culture, etc, which is great, but why slap the name "Lee Morgan" on the title if it barely has to do with his life or music? You could get more information on Lee by reading the liner notes to one of his albums, for instance. This is just a guy trying to make a name for himself by blathering on for hundreds of pages about social issues.

Will someone out there write a TRUE biography of one of jazz's most tragic figures?

There are lots of errors in the book about South Philly. I went to Barratt Junior High with Tony Marchione. He did not live on Porter Street, he lived on Bouvier Street. The Linton's they spoke about was located on Broad and Girard, not Broad and Columbia. I played in the Owen Marshall and Tommie Monroe big band with Lee. No one asked Ted Curson about Lee. Lots of the people who were part of Lee's early life are still around, it's a pity they weren't spoken to.
Wilmer Wise

As a big Lee Morgan fan, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Lee is my favorite trumpet player, and it was nice to finally have a full biography of this jazz legend.
This book gives an in-depth look at the life of Lee Morgan from his childhood to the last days leading up to his tragic death. There are details about his childhood friends, his earliest musical influences, as well as his political and cultural views. There are numerous interviews with jazz musicians who played with Lee, as well as plenty of quotes from Lee himself, of course. These interviews and quotes tend to be quite colorful and are sometimes hilarious. They also give a lot of insight into the ups and downs in the life of this volatile figure. Throughout the book, the author gives his own analysis of Morgan's work, album by album. I did not always agree with his assessments of the music, but they did make for interesting reading.
I also found it interesting that the author chose to analyze Morgan's music in a politcal and cultural context. The book shows that there was a good deal of substance to Lee's music and to the man himself. Many readers may be suprised to learn of some of Lee's views regarding politics in general, and the jazz music scene in particular. He is revealed as a very thoughtful and conscientious person, despite his somewhat brash and arrogant reputation.
Overall, the book was very informative and a delight to read. I heartily recommend it anyone who is a fan of Lee Morgan. This book is not to be missed!

Well, this wasn't exactly what I was thinking when I bought this bio of my favorite musician, but it's ok. As the title suggests, the author not only focuses on Lee, but the politics and culture of the time. He brings in factors that some of us would have already considered (like the civil rights and Black Power movements), as well as his horrific heroin addiction. I would have liked more from musicians he really liked performing with, like Jackie McLean, Billy Higgins, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, etc., but maybe he couldn't get to them. It was interesting, but ultimately, not enough for real lovers of this great musician.

What's up with you guys? An author comes along and offers us something genuinely new in the field of jazz biography, and all that some of you can do is descend into name-calling and personal attacks. I'd always liked to imagine that Amazon reviews might be a place for constructive criticism and debate. Apparently not.

Rather than offering us yet another Great Man (in the tiresome style of the Ken Burns Jazz series), Mr. Perchard offers a painstakingly researched and richly contextualized account of the life of an often inspired and often troubled soul. And, rather than adopting the authoritative voice of the confident biographer, full of confident facts, Mr. Perchard reflects intriguingly on his own role in the process of telling, and constructing, history. This is, indeed, something new. So, for those of you out there who are apparently 'troubled' or 'disturbed' by Mr. Perchard's account, I suggest that you check out the reviews of his book by some well-established jazz writers (www.tomperchard.com/reviews.htm), and then go back and have another look at this fascinating text.

And the only thing "disturbing" about Mr. Fitzgerald's recent posting is that he appears to be on commission from the University of Michigan Press. Is this what Amazon reviews are for? I'm sure that Mr. McMillan's forthcoming book will act as an interesting complement to Mr. Perchard's, although Mr. Fitzgerald seems remarkably confident in the apparent strengths of the former, given that it hasn't even been published yet. And U of M Press, please note: Mr McMillan's book is not, as you state in the blurb on your website (with the aid of a well-split infinitive), "the first biography to seriously examine Morgan's vast contributions to jazz." Mr. Perchard's book, which examines seriously Morgan's vast contributions to jazz, was published in November 2006. Puffery is one thing; factual accuracy is another.

This is one of the best books about the culture of jazz - at least specific to one era - that I've ever read. It's obviously not a straightforward jazz biography, and perhaps the title/presentation could have done more to represent this fact. Upon reading, however, it becomes immediately evident what the book instead is, and taken on these terms, Tom Perchard does a highly admirable job of relating the travails of Lee Morgan's career to the broader external context of the surroundings and culture in which it existed.

The tone here is academic but hardly stilted, and the text is consistently and incisively on point. Wilbur Ware's rather trivial objection aside, Perchard talked with a copious amount of people who had some relation to Morgan, and the text benefits greatly from a healthy infusion of perspectives other than strictly that of the author. The book, in fact, may have actually benefited further from less direct analysis of Morgan's music, being that this tends to sidetrack from the author's more prominent theme of representing Morgan as more or less a product of the time and place he found himself in. This book is primarily an analysis of jazz and its relation to American culture, music industry, and black politics from the 1950s through the early 1970s - a period through which an mind-boggling myriad of changes abounded through all of these entities.

Those who prefer to focus on Morgan rather than the sociological undercurrents of his music will still find a good deal of enlightenment, particularly in the delineation of changes that took place late in Morgan's life to account for the radical stylistic departure in his last album from the hard-bop offerings he had previously been known for. A featured quote by archivist Michael Cuscuna illumines this intrigue: "By the 1970s, when the world had just passed jazz by, there were a lot of people that suffered, and I think [Morgan] was chief among them. But the interesting thing was that at that point, his reaction was to make less commercial records." And perhaps there is a more thorough overview of the collectives and organizations that emerged around this time by black artists to help promote and protect their output, but I haven't seen it. This in itself, along with the portrayal of Morgan's conspicuous involvement in such causes, was a revelation. At the other end of his career spectrum, there is also an engrossing exploration of the scene in 1950s Philadelphia which spawned so many notable jazz musicians like Morgan.

The one thing that leaves a bad taste is that the author has nearly nothing good to say about Morgan's music or playing abilities. Though clearly this project emerged through a labor of love for the trumpeter's work, and though his criticisms aren't truly off base in most cases, Perchard is a rather relentlessly harsh critic with precious few words of praise to offer in turn. Morgan was one of the most underrated composers of his era in addition to all the sass and flavor that marked his musical persona, and it is disappointing that this aspect of his legacy gets typically short shrift in a book with his name in the title.

It is ironic, nevertheless, that this book, which spends a lot of time breaking down the reasons why the vital form of jazz was marginalized within its most fecund era, is relegated to a relatively obscure British publication that an American (a Philadelphian, no less) like myself would only come across by accident. Would no University Press really have been interested in this kind of manuscript? The format is somewhat unconventional insofar as featuring the author's relation of his own experiences while probing Morgan's old neighborhood, though this is done in a relevant and unobtrusive fashion. At the very least, it takes nothing away from this genuinely penetrating, informed piece of literature, which like its subject is deserving of a greater audience.