Jazz for aficionados

Mostly agree with you @orpheus10 regarding Lee Morgan. With me, it's always been a toss-up between Lee and Miles. One thing I may have noted before, in interviews where Miles gives a rundown of his trumpet contemporaries, he never had anything to say about Lee Morgan - good or bad. He  talked about other folks, but not Lee. I always wondered what that was about.

Just as an aside. Checked out a biopic this weekend of Chet Baker "Born to be Blue" ... a fairly good movie IMHO. Apparently he had the chops early on to be picked up to play with Birdman when Chet was in his early 20's. Drugs derailed his career.  

Strateahed, Miles Davis had the biggest ego of any musician who ever lived; that fact alone indicates why he never had anything to say about Lee Morgan, and at the same time, it makes a humongous statement in favor of Lee Morgan.

It's one thing to look back at history, but it's altogether another when history is right now; on the street, the conversation was always hot among Aficionados about the best trumpet shortly after Clifford Brown's death. While I always took Clifford Brown, I was always challenged by Lee Morgan fans. In hindsight, it was because I had not heard enough of Lee Morgan; today I consider it "possibly" a toss up leaning toward Lee Morgan because of his output of so much outstanding jazz.

It is because of discussions like these, that my collection is gaining in the most sparkling contributions of modern jazz ever recorded.


Enjoy the music.

I think we need to be a little more precise in what we are trying to establish. We need a better historical context.

****Lee Morgan was to the trumpet, what Charley Parker was to the alto sax****

Are we talking about who is our favorite or who was the most important and influential? And how do we make a comparison like that when Morgan and Parker were active during two different periods in the history of the music?

If we are looking for which trumpet player, like Parker did with the alto saxophone, ushered trumpet playing into "modern jazz", then it’s hard to not give the credit to Dizzy Gillespie who was there alongside Parker shaping the new music.

Moving on to hard bop: while it is true that Lee Morgan’s output was greater than Clifford Brown’s who sadly died at the age of 25(!), Clifford was, without a doubt, the more important of the two; he was, in fact, Lee Morgan’s main influence. If we are talking about a trumpet player who, like Charlie Parker did for the alto, had the most influence, not only on trumpet players, but on all jazz players by changing the very face of the music regardless of time period, it’s hard to not give that credit to Miles. As great and individualistic as Lee Morgan was, he did not have the overall impact on jazz that Miles did. Difficult comparisons.

Frogman, as always, your post is 'technically' correct, but in the looser artistic sense I disagree with it.

Diz and Bird, 'technically' correct in regard to "Bebop" the new jazz that progressed into "hard bop"; but in regard to Lee Morgans prodigious creativity in jazz that stayed in the mainstream of jazz without 'flip flopping' all over the place like Miles who was always searching for a new audience, I will take "Lee Morgan" any day.

While Lee Morgan idolized Clifford Brown (everybody did, and that includes me) it wasn't Lee Morgans fault that Clifford didn't live longer, and that he Lee Morgan should have such a large output of creative jazz that has withstood the test of time and brought him into the top ranks of jazz trumpeters of all time.

As I stated before, when I chose Clifford Brown over Lee Morgan, it was because I hadn't heard enough of Lee Morgan; now that I'm listening to Lee Morgan, I'm amazed at the new creativity that pours out of his horn on each album without ever being repetitive.


Enjoy the music.

O-10, no one can disagree with personal taste.  I guess I don't really understand what you mean by "was to the trumpet what Charlie Parker was to the alto sax".  While size of output is important, I think that size of output is a "technical" matter as opposed to a "looser artistic" matter.  I dont think that this is a matter of the "technical" vs "artistic".  Are you suggesting that Morgan was more artistic or more important to the music than Miles was?  I think few would agree with that assessment.  In fact, the "flip flopping" that you allude too is precisely one of the things that made Miles such a great artist.  Actually, he didn't "flip flop", he pretty much moved in a straight line of new musical styles.  Moreover, while I can't disagree with your comment about Miles' ego, I don't believe that ego was why he didn't talk about Morgan but did talk about other players; I suspect that he simply didn't consider Morgan a pivotal player.  Both Brown and Morgan were great artists without a doubt.  My point through all this is simply that one can't take the historical context out of the equation and if that is a "technical" matter, then "looser artistic sense" has to be considered personal taste and not much more.  Nothing wrong with personal taste.