 Lee Morgan Lee Morgan's score for the Haley Joel Osment thriller The Sixth Sense is as moody and evocative as the film itself, and benefits greatly from overdubbed dialogue from Bruce Willis, who also sings ten R&B classics in his "Bruno" persona – included here as bonus tracks. Yikes, get me away from whatever parallel universe that album exists in. Actually, this The Sixth Sense is one of Lee Morgan's more neglected albums, another pristine effort from the period when Blue Note was starting to lose some of its popularity to the more rock-influenced sounds the Fillmore crowd was digging. The real jazz hounds probably ignored this one too, given its pseudo-psychedelic cover and the fact that Morgan's fame after The Sidewinder became a big hit seems to have immediately caused some purists to dismiss him as a sell-out. In my opinion, Lee Morgan was one of the few Blue Note cats who remained fairly untainted right up to the end – though he did revisit his own territory a fair amount (see The Rumproller). But his tone was so pure and his expression so striking, that I have found very few Lee Morgan albums I don't like a lot. The band is typically good: Morgan on trumpet, Jackie McLean on alto, Frank Mitchell on tenor, Cedar Walton on piano, Victor Sproles on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. The tunes are fantastic, many of them using that vaguely Latin flavor that characterizes much of Morgan's catalog, starting with the stuff he wrote for Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the early 60s. "The Sixth Sense" itself is a great, Latin-esque turnaround cut with a snaky melody and as heavy a sound as you can get without bringing in the amplifiers. "Short Count" sounds like something off Miles Smiles, a memorable tune played with great strength. The misnamed "Psychedelic" is a bluesy bit of soul-jazz that seems to have been titled either to intentionally mislead the jazz-buying rock fans or to simply be ironic. Good tune, anyway. Jackie McLean shines on Cedar Walton's "Afreaka" with a truly blistering solo that sends shivers up yer timbers, matey. The real surprise of the set is "The City of My People," which closed the original LP issue – it's a gorgeous noir-ish ballad played with a mute that finds Lee more in Miles territory than perhaps anywhere else I've heard. Also, the tune is so unapologetically romantic sounding that you have to admire Morgan for cutting it in 1967. It's a throwback, but one that really drives home the point that innovation is not always great by simple virtue of being new. Classic stays classic for a reason. The CD issue adds three tracks from an unissued session featuring Morgan, again with Frank Mitchell and Billy Higgins, along with Harold Mabern on piano and Mickey Bass on (you guessed it) bass. In the liner notes, reissue producer Michael Cuscuna says that the three tunes are the sole releasable tunes from an otherwise "abysmal" session – and I would love to hear what qualifies as "abysmal" to Michael Cuscuna. This guy has probably heard more jazz than anyone currently on the planet, and his tireless respect for the Blue Note era in particular is deeply impressive. So how bad would a session have to be for him to call it "abysmal?" Judging by the three tunes here, it can't have been that bad at all, but I guess we have to take his word for it. The tunes fit right in with the other stuff on The Sixth Sense, making for a great CD reissue of an underrated album. Though hardly the best stuff Lee Morgan ever recorded, it's a good album that shows why Lee was, to many, a better trumpet player than Miles and in fact one of the best ever. He wasn't the innovator that Miles was, perhaps, but on the other hand, Lee Morgan never made anything approaching the shamefulness of an On the Corner.
Review by Ol' German |