Let us XXXXX that statement "Was to the trumpet, what Bird was to the alto".
Frogman,it goes beyond personal taste; it involves whose taste is most concurrent with "the street" meaning aficionados from New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, in regard specifically to "Hard Bop".
There is no way we can can put this current discussion under that big "amorphous" tent called "jazz". Lee Morgan almost became a subject unto himself; his blazing solos with Blakey yelling "Git mad!" behind him. The artistic merit of "Search For The New Land", the music of which could easily be turned into choreography that told a deep story of a lost people searching for a new "Spiritual Land".
The more I search for Lee Morgan, the more I find; I ran out of my search for Miles Davis sometime ago; it's impossible to tell where personal taste ends, and some kind of objectivity begins. However, I will say that I knew people who knew Miles, and loved him like a brother, but had a different opinion of a lot of his most current music.
Would you have been in "Slugs" every night to see and hear Lee Morgan, if it had been convenient? I would be willing to bet that "Nica" went there, and let the wine heads guard her Bentley.
There is no way we can, nor do I want it to be an objective discussion; either you heard Lee's blazing solos like I did, or you didn't.