Standards

Lee Morgan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 12, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B000005GW1
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,036 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lee's "Standards" Finally Sees The Light Of Day, March 11, 2001

By 

Michael B. Richman (Portland, Maine USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Standards (Audio CD)

More than thirty years after its recording in January 1967, Lee Morgan's "Standards" was finally released for the first time in 1998. Why did it take Blue Note/Capitol so long to issue an album by one of its biggest stars of the 60s? Well, from 1965 to 1967, Lee recorded an amazing eleven albums worth of material, so it is easy to see how some of it sat in the vaults. But I am surprised that a solid session like this never got released in the 70s or 80s on vinyl like "Infinity," "The Procrastinator" or "Tom Cat" did, and that we had to wait until the late 90s for it to make its debut not on LP or cassette, but on CD!

In any event, it's here now so how about a little album information. Recording Lee in a standards setting was the idea of pianist and Blue Note A&R man Duke Pearson, who also made the arrangements for this session. The songs range from popular hits like "God Bless The Child" and "Blue Gardenia," made famous by Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole respectively, to Broadway show tunes like "This Is The Life" (Golden Boy), "A Lot Of Livin' To Do" (Bye Bye Birdie), and "Somewhere" (West Side Story). The disc's personnel aside from Morgan (trumpet) is James Spaulding on flute & alto sax, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Pepper Adams on baritone sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Mickey Roker on drums. My reason for withholding a fifth star is that personally I like Lee's more exploratory sessions from this period, like "Infinity" or "The Procrastinator," or even his funky hard bop meets soulful groove affairs, like "The Gigolo" or "Charisma." With that being said, "Standards" is still a great disc, that deserved to see the light of day much earlier than 1998.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tons of fun, June 10, 2000

By 

dig-it-the-most "dig-it-the-most" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Standards (Audio CD)

What a high spirited album! The cut "This is the Life" will make everybody's "Party" playlist. Lee and Wayne!

6 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just another day at the studio, August 3, 2001

By 

John J. Pas "zesty" (MI, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Standards (Audio CD)

This is the poorest album of Morgan's Blue Note output. The program consists of obvious commercial material. It's an album consisting of Morgan backed by saxes, not a bad idea. Most of the tunes, however, while sometimes catchy, are not exactly the best improvisatory vehicles. 'A Lot of Livin' to Do' is typical of all the work on the CD: It has a decent intro and arrangement, but the solos lack any real fire or imagination. Morgan, while not playing terribly, just sounds like he's going through the motions. He even botches several notes in playing some of the themes of the tunes ('Livin'). The solo contributions of Shorter, Adams and Spaulding are negligible. The most interesting track on the album is Bernstein's 'Somewhere.' Even this is only because of the variety that Spaulding's flute lends to the arrangement. The solos are of the same mediocre quality as the rest of the material. While not abysmally bad, this is by no means a great CD. It is only for the Morgan completist or enthusiast.