Search - Lee Morgan :: Standards

Lee's "Standards" Finally Sees The Light Of Day

Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 03/11/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"More than thirty years after its recording in January 1967, Lee Morgan's "Standards" was finally released for the first time in 1998. Why did it take Blue Note/Capitol so long to issue an album by one of its biggest stars of the 60s? Well, from 1965 to 1967, Lee recorded an amazing eleven albums worth of material, so it is easy to see how some of it sat in the vaults. But I am surprised that a solid session like this never got released in the 70s or 80s on vinyl like "Infinity," "The Procrastinator" or "Tom Cat" did, and that we had to wait until the late 90s for it to make its debut not on LP or cassette, but on CD!



In any event, it's here now so how about a little album information. Recording Lee in a standards setting was the idea of pianist and Blue Note A&R man Duke Pearson, who also made the arrangements for this session. The songs range from popular hits like "God Bless The Child" and "Blue Gardenia," made famous by Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole respectively, to Broadway show tunes like "This Is The Life" (Golden Boy), "A Lot Of Livin' To Do" (Bye Bye Birdie), and "Somewhere" (West Side Story). The disc's personnel aside from Morgan (trumpet) is James Spaulding on flute & alto sax, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Pepper Adams on baritone sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Mickey Roker on drums. My reason for withholding a fifth star is that personally I like Lee's more exploratory sessions from this period, like "Infinity" or "The Procrastinator," or even his funky hard bop meets soulful groove affairs, like "The Gigolo" or "Charisma." With that being said, "Standards" is still a great disc, that deserved to see the light of day much earlier than 1998."