When the term masterpiece is not usurped

Thanks be to R as Bolt rope, which reported here and there in his view it is the masterpiece of Lee Morgan. The term is not usurped.

For his disc at Blue Note leader immediately following The Sidewinder - so internationally known he does not really need to do that in the article - Lee Morgan made all themes and retains the services of Wayne Shorter ( ts), Grant Green (g), Herbie Hancock (p), Reggie Workman (b) and Billy Higgins (d). It is early 64, Shorter and Hancock have not yet joined Miles Davis to form his famous second great quintet (see my review of the case essentiellissime Quintet 1965-1968). Lee Morgan is back in the Jazz Messengers, and especially it has not felt the wind blow of what would become his blessing and part of his loss, the huge success of The Sidewinder, which will force him to try to find the formula thereafter. (His real loss, it will be a little later, when it will end more than a jazzman could have done, and some may have dreamed ...)

Here, no formula, a natural evolution of his style for a perfectly composed album. Whether one is right in the hard bop aesthetic, with its strong memories of Jazz Messengers or Horace Silver ("The Joker", "Mr. Kenyatta"), or in more subtle compositions harmonically (the morceau- title "Search for the New Land", that could be called "Following the New World", lasting nearly 16 'or "Melancholee"), what prevails is the perfect balance of the group and high class all instrumentalists. And yet giving enough retained their full potential, both Shorter and Hancock (almost McCoy Tyner fashion at a time) or Grant Green, while the rhythm section does more than without overdoing it. We find of course the characteristic phrasing of Lee Morgan, who was probably there at the top, capable of nuances that are not always known it elsewhere.

Masterpiece of Lee Morgan leader so (almost) on a par with those other exceptional albums to the success of which he contributed: Wayne Shorter Night Dreamer and Evolution Grachan Monchur III (see the comments of Bolt rope these two wonders). Of course, Cornbread, The Sidewinder Lee Way or The Procrastinator are other great albums trumpeter, useless without it.

But in fact, regardless of the category under consideration, the word masterpiece is not usurped: the Blue Note catalog, hard bop jazz, 60s, etc. In short, the New World, is also there, do not let the caravel to venture much further.