Lee Morgan Vol. 3

Lee Morgan was 18. He was born in Philadelphia in July 1938, led his own band on weekends at 15, and sat in with Miles Davis and Clifford Brown at the Music City workshop sessions in Philadelphia. Nat Hentoff, in the original notes, has him with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for two weeks in the summer of 1956, then joining Dizzy Gillespie's big band soon after his 18th birthday. Blue Note had already made two records with him as leader. This was the third.

The date was Sunday, March 24, 1957, at Rudy Van Gelder's in Hackensack, with Alfred Lion producing. It was a sextet: Gigi Gryce on alto and flute, Benny Golson on tenor, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Charlie Persip on drums. Golson, a Philadelphian too and also with Gillespie, wrote all five tunes. Gryce tells Hentoff that Golson hadn't wanted to play on the date, and they had to talk him into it. Gryce was all praise for him as a writer:

Benny is really trying to do something for the advancement of form in jazz.

Gigi Gryce, in Nat Hentoff's original liner notes

At Lion's request, Golson wrote a short guide to each tune for the notes, so much of what we know comes from him. Side one opens with "Hasaan's Dream," about a boy who sees the wonders of a sultan's palace and dreams of them that night; a tambourine stands in for the piano in the opening. "Domingo" is Spanish for Sunday, written for friends Golson made on Gillespie's South American tour.

Side two opens with "I Remember Clifford," for his friend Clifford Brown.

I worked with this melody for three weeks, trying to get a melody that would be reminiscent of him and the way he played.

Benny Golson, in Nat Hentoff's original liner notes

"Mesabi Chant" was written in Minneapolis and has a 34-bar chorus, 13 bars either side of an eight-bar bridge. "Tip-Toeing" came from the way Persip plays a soft, straight four, and he opens it with a two-bar introduction.

The sleeve was designed by Harold Feinstein around a Francis Wolff photograph. Wikipedia credits the notes to Ira Gitler, but the notes reprinted on The Jazz Tome are signed by Nat Hentoff.

Leonard Feather, reviewing it in Down Beat, gave it four stars and called it Golson's album as much as Morgan's. An earlier take of "Tip-Toeing" stayed in the vault until the CD. In August Morgan was back at Van Gelder's with another sextet for City Lights.