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Product Details
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Combines a four/four rock drum beat, soul/funk/boogaloo bass line with rapid-fire, close harmony mirror-image Jazz trumpet and tenor sax parts on top. This fusion effort was called a Rock sell-out when it originally was released but it is one of the most consistently listenable Fusion type albums to this day.
Other tracks are strong, less funky, more Jazzy. Especially Totem Pole. Lee Morgan spent most of his subsequent life trying to duplicate the success of this album following the same formula, usually with lesser results; a few good tracks and a lot of more forgetable stuff. No, he doesn't have the beautiful lost-in-a-crowd melancholy sound of early Miles Davis and his harmon mute, but Lee Morgan is as good in a different direction: intense, happy and upbeat.
Great bestseller album from the sixties. Burrows into your head and you hear it in your memory. A great album for Rocker's who think they don't like Jazz. Or those new to Jazz.
This album is the cure for everyone who thinks they don't get jazz. The music is funky,bluesy, brash and extroverted. Fans of pretty much any popular music genre will be able to react to the groove here. Yet this is no dumbed down, watered-down piece of pandering. Instead, this was a group of highly accomplished jazz musicians playing their butts off on a really good day.
The re-mastering of the original Blue Note recording sessions is also excellent. Blue Note was famous for having being best recorded sessions in jazz and this album is a good example of everything that made the label great. You can really here the interplay between the musicians on this very clean recording, without ever having to sacrifice the soulfulness of the music.
Lee Morgan was one of several jazz trumpeters in the 1950s who died in a relatively young age. Play this disc and find out just what we all missed.
"The Sidewinder" is perhaps Morgan's best known recording, and it is indeed a good listen. The recording also features Joe Henderson (tenor), Barry Harris (piano), Billy Higgins (drums), and Bob Cranshaw (bass). The main title track that opens the recording is a pretty well-known, funky vamp that is so catchy that it is easy to miss the fine interplay between Henderson and Morgan throughout the track. The remaining tracks on the recording are a little more in the hard bop vein and really showcase Morgan's underrated skills as a composer--it should be noted that all of the tracks on the recording were written by Lee Morgan. As with the case of Hank Mobley, Morgan should be given a lot more credit for crafting intricate jazz compositions. They are excellent, particularly the gorgeous "Totem Pole" which features beautiful improvisational interludes, novel changes, and a tight, melodic head.
Basically, this is not a bad place to start a Lee Morgan collection, if you are interested in hearing his work. However, with an artist of this magnitude, you can't really go wrong getting anything by him.