LEE MORGAN
Taru (Blue Note)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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It took 13 years to get these tracks into release the first time around, and they've been out of print far too long since then, so once again my hat is off to Blue Note for its Connoisseur Series, which is bringing some outstanding, if lesser known, jazz back into circulation.

This session, recorded in 1968, put Lee Morgan's trumpet in the company of Bennie Maupin (tenor sax), George Benson (guitar), John Hicks (piano), Reggie Workman (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). The group works through a pair of up tempo modal tunes, a pair of ballads and a pair of funky boogaloos, an apparent attempt to recapture Morgan's earlier success with the funky "Sidewinder," which actually made a significant dent in the pop charts.

It's an altogether satisfying set, with the commercial reach of the funk tunes held in check by the taste and skill of the players, and with exceptional, often beautiful, solos by Morgan, Hicks and Maupin elsewhere. There's a definite mark of maturity in Morgan's playing here, and it's one of those albums that inevitably makes you wonder what he might have become had it not been for his tragic death in 1972. (Morgan was shot to death by a girlfriend at a club date.)

Swinging, soulful and occasionally superb, this is an album that deserves to be in release, and deserves to be in your player.

Track List:

Avotcja One * Haeshen * Dee Lawd * Get Yourself Together (Get Yo'self Togetha) * Taru, What's Wrong With You * Durem

© 2000 - Shaun Dale