His (real) way or the highway.
Personnel
Lee Morgan (trumpet), Jackie McLean (alto saxophone), Bobby Timmons (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Art Blakey (drums)
Recorded
on April 28, 1960 at Rudy van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Released
as BLP 4034 in 1960
Track listing
Side A: These Are Soulful Days / The Lion And The Wolff/ Side B: Midtown Blues / Nakatani Suite
There’s a Kurt Vonnegut meme that’s floating around like a turtle in the high tide. It’s the one (paraphrase,
FM) where the writer recounts his wife saying why on earth should he go out buying envelopes while all he needs to do is send his friend an email. Vonnegut replies that there are benefits to going out. He’ll have a chat with the paperboy, hear a song come out of a cab, hear the rustling of the leaves or see a cop on a horse click-clack by. Something to stir the imagination.
Grandaddy speaking, perhaps. But implied deep meaning disguised as cliché, no less. This comes from a man who didn’t want – was unable – to write about the horror of the Dresden bombing at the end of World War II. But Dresden eventually came to Vonnegut, as he, somewhat the Dalai Lama of literature, was fooling around with this and that. Ergo: Slaughterhouse Five.
It’s a bit sad that Vonnegut’s wisdom needs repeating (ironically, through the internet and social media) but it has become all the more poignant and relevant in the overwhelming age of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the constraints of algorithms. (Not to be confused with the wisdom of slow food, slow traveling, slow fashion, slow sex – admirable efforts but the difference is Vonnegut shared it for free while ‘slow culture’ needs to make a profit)
Let’s read it as a call to arms.
If AI benefits our general health and welfare, let it blossom. Even as an efficiency tool to journalism, what the hell. But ho, ho and ho. Ask questions first. Do we want it to make human journalism disappear? And step back and consider this. Who is behind A.I.? We don’t know who, behind the surface, has access to information and so is actually running the show, yet we give up privacy and “Open” A.I. is making billions. No disclosure. Disclosure first, then we’ll see. Thoughts that better minds work out in depth elsewhere, but it needs reminding.
How do we get from A.I. and algorithm to Lee Morgan? Oh, no problem, listen here. Question. How would you like it if A.I. gets so perfect, having incorporated all Lee Morgan and Blue Note data, that it will be able to produce new Lee Morgan records on Blue Note, seemingly indistinguishable from the real thing. Or make it able for anyone with a laptop to produce ersatz Morgan records. Pro or con? Think hard.
(Mellow D73879: “My violet information brain cell is telling me that they used to play a thing called jazz from 1917 till approximately 2188. There were 4 or 5 people on a stage that banged on goat skins and blew air through copper tubes and there were people called ‘the audience’ that applauded after every song.”
Mellow D11255: “Sounds absurd. Wait a second, let me check my violet information brain cell. Yes, I see. They also pressed black discs from poison and used a diamant needle to send air waves from speakers into a room. Cool, but rather primitive.”
Mellow D73879: “The freedom of creating musical ideas on the spot, without a safety net. That’s bad. That’s probably where all the trouble started, don’t you think? Wait… Yes, that’s it. Freedom was the cause of chaos and the end of civilization.”
Mellow D11255: “Of course, that’s easy to say from our point of view. We’ve got our monthly shots of happiness ‘n’ bliss.”
Words aren’t spoken here. Feelings and discussions between the Mellow D’s are transmitted through globs of glutinous slime. Tangible things like earth, eyes, metal, underwear, dirt, aren’t relevant anymore. There are only dimensions and digits.
Mellow D11255: “It seems jazz was connected with what they used to call a culture. First it was used to move your hands and feet. Then it was mainly a thing to be digested by the ear and the intellect. It consisted of sounds – the air waves you spoke of – that reflected the plight of people with brown skin, who were suppressed by people with white skin. What is skin?”
Mellow D73879: “It all sounds positively ludicrous har har har!”)
Listen some more. The record that is pictured above was bought in a record shop in The Netherlands long ago and though this in itself is no big achievement, it is the opposite of letting yourself being swept away in the wasteland of Spotify’s fast food. Record store equates with discovery, Spotify (not downgrading evident advantages) equates with conformity and dulling of the senses. (not least exploitation of artists, other subject)
Not having a monopoly on realness, interchangeable with several other vintage modern jazz records, though a perfect example, Leeway stands for realness on several levels. Don’t you agree Lee Morgan (and Blue Note) is the real thing?
As if it needs confirmation. But aye! Damn right. Grounded in bebop, Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan added his own brand of modernism, a virile mix of fire and a brassy full trumpet tone. He’s a go-getter. Doesn’t fool around, what you see is what you get though he’ll give you a certain margin to move around with your opinions and feelings…
Streetwise. Timbres and accents, slurs and whoops are adjectives of sassy sentences of saucy and sometimes lurid tales he tells. You see him hanging onto the bar rail for dear life, cracking up from laughter. Having a fight with his girl. Making up with his girl. Candy Candy Candy I can’t let you go…
Candy lived in affluent times, the Korean War was over, the future looked bright, the suburban sprawl developed like a rash on a giant’s body. Neighbors competed against each other with bigger fridges, bigger cars, almost everybody saw Ed Sullivan introducing Elvis Presley, even the overtime workers in Detroit car factories, black and white, the blacks still worse off, always on guard for a racist cop. Morgan talks with a hustler who talks with a bricklayer that is out of a job who talks with a chorus girl whose boyfriend won a lottery and lends a dime to a beggar to hop on the bus to visit a friend in the Sing Sing jail…
It’s all there on his cooperation with Jackie McLean, Bobby Timmons, Paul Chambers, Art Blakey. McLean’s urgent alto sax, controlled passion. Timmons’s classy piano playing, ringing notes, barrelhouse tinges. Rumbling Blakey rolls, the fat Blakey sound! Super tunes, plainly awesome. Courtesy of pianist/composer from Philly, Cal Massey. These Are Soulful Days, unforgettable and beautiful melody, a celebration of life and communal spirit. Nakatani Suite a good contender, kids with mouths like razors playing hide and seek in Chinatown.
Morgan takes McLean’s Midtown Blues by the balls, a hot rod going for the extra mile. Finally, his homage: The Lion And The Wolff.
Yes, the Blue Note guys, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. The legendary label, now part of the corporate structure, back then factually a little independent company, was as real and authentic as they came. It nurtured the musicians they believed in (one of the prime BN artists, Lee Morgan, started recording at age 18 in 1956, was into his eighth album with Leeway in 1960, would stay with the company until his untimely death in 1972). Gave them time to rehearse. Music, production, imagery was top-tier.
Still an example for fab contemporary labels like Cellar Music, small wonder.
Blue Note was out there hocking real stuff. Morgan was out there night after night, pouring out his heart, blowing the blues. Jackie McLean too, Bobby Timmons, Paul Chambers, Art Blakey. It’s a realness people crave (again) more and more, a desire reflected by various YouTube channels, podcasts, new record stores popping up or old ones doing fine.
We want realness, we want people with passion sharing obsessions with other people with passion. (We have, in jazz, real cats: arrived figureheads like Christian McBride, Joshua Redman, Dado Moroni, new breed like Emmet Cohen, Sarah Hanahan, Erena Terakubo.) The biggies may have to scratch their heads and wonder if strict adherence to algorithms suffices to keep customers aboard.
We’re desperately trying not to be constantly staring at a tiny screen all the time, developing a swan neck and nearsightedness and hypertension. Erosion of soul, while soul is paramount. Sometimes buying an envelope on a soulful day is all we need.
(Lee Morgan; Cal Massey; Envelope)
Listen to Leeway on Don Kaart’s super jazz channel All That Jazz on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hurvE1QmrHo&list=RDhurvE1QmrHo&start_radio=1
