Margaret Walker, Lee Morgan, and those blues in the night . . .

Paulene Myers, actress (with back to camera), Raymond Patterson, poet, Margaret Walker, Paula Giddings's afro towering over Margaret Walker, Herbert Martin (center), Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, critic, unidentified woman,Lorenzo Thomas, poet.

Show description for Sunday 7/10/2011 @ 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Lee Morgan , one of the greatest trumpet players in the history of jazz, is celebrated today on New Day Jazz, along with the life and poetry of Margaret Walker.

"Margaret Walker is of the great creators and teachers of literature." - Amiri Baraka

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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Margaret Walker	Kissie Lee	Anthology Of Negro Poets	Folkways
	Ella Fitzgerald	Blues In The Night	Sings The Harold Arlen Songbook	Verve
	Ella Fitzgerald	Let's Fall In Love	Sings The Harold Arlen Songbook	Verve
	Ella Fitzgerald	Stormy Weather	Sings The Harold Arlen Songbook	Verve
	Margaret Walker (read by Gloria Foster)	We Have Been Believers	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers	Roots & Herbs	Roots & Herbs	Blue Note
	Lee Morgan	Short Count	The Sixth Sense	Blue Note
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Shirley Horn	Travelin' Light	Travelin' Light	ABC-Paramount
	Shirley Horn	Sunday In New York	Travelin' Light	ABC-Paramount
	Shirley Horn	I Could Have Told You	Travelin' Light	ABC-Paramount
	Lee Morgan	You're Mine You	City Lights	Blue Note
	Lee Morgan	City Lights	City Lights	Blue Note
	Margaret Walker	Old Molly Means	Anthology Of Negro Poets	Folkways
	Grachan Moncur III	Monk In Wonderland	Evolution	Blue Note
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Margaret Walker	For My People	Anthology Of Negro Poets	Folkways
	Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers	Sakeena's Vision	The Big Beat	Blue Note
	Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers	Calling Miss Khadija	Indestructible!	Blue Note
	Margaret Walker	Stackalee	Anthology Of Negro Poets	Folkways
	Lee Morgan	Since I Fell For You	Candy	Blue Note
	Louis Armstrong	Stardust	Louis Armstrong Favorites Vol. 4	Columbia
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Lee Konitz	I Remember You	Motion	Verve

A taste of Candy from Lee Morgan

The great pianist Sonny Clark, heir to Bud Powell, once said that he enjoyed accompanying improvisations as much as performing them himself. Nowhere is this pleasure so evident than on the Lee Morgan date Candy. In fact, Candy is distinguished in a number of respects, not the least of which is the fact that it is Morgan's only album on which he appears as the sole horn at the session. The selection of material is also unusually satisfying, inclusive and original. For fans of Morgan it is likely the ballads, Since I Fell For You and All The Way, that really stand out. The simple grandeur of Morgan's treatment of Since I Fell For You lifts the tune to a romantic plateau few jazzmen have scaled. So thoughtful and honest in its blues, it'll bring you, if not to tears, than to the memory of the last time you cried them. Clark's introduction is absolutely heartbreaking and it sets the tone. All The Way is no less romantic in its perfection. Made famous by Frank Sinatra sometime prior to this recording, Morgan builds this tale of heartfelt commitment into a rhapsody. So profound are the emotions imparted that one cannot escape a sense of urgent beauty in its call to embrace your lover, all the way. The title track, Candy, contains some of Clark's best work in this period and demonstrates that this album really is as much his as it is Morgans. In fact, Clark's storytelling ability has never been so fully on display. Just within the space of this album alone, Clark seems to impart a vast array of human experience and, of course, a heaping amount of the blues. For Clark always puts a little blues, not unlike the aforementioned Powell, on just about everything he plays. The A side concludes with what was at the time a recent composition by the great, and too little recognized composer-saxman, Jimmy Heath, brother of drummer, Albert, and bassist, Percy. The tune, C.T.A. had been recorded a few years earlier by Miles Davis and, according to Davis, the title takes its name from the initials of a young Chinese-American woman Heath was dating at the time. It's a real rouser and clocks in as the most uptempo piece at the session. Ardent fans of Morgan's famed pyrotechnics will not be let down with this one, it is pregnant with the spiritual mysteries of classic bebop. Also included in this set are Irving Berlin's Who Do You Love, I Hope and the evergreen Personality. Both display what are to my ears some of the very finest examples to be heard anywhere of modern jazz trumpet improvisation. Morgan is more than on top of his game, he is on top of the world, climbing higher and taking us with him! The power and control with which he approaches the theme laid out by Berlin is nothing short of astounding. As in the best of the jazz tradition, Morgan takes a relatively obscure work and breathes a new and exciting life into it, resurrecting the creative forces that gave it birth while simultaneously charting a new course. Personality has been for many the stand out track. The wit and humor of a sly, even cryptic, lyricism makes itself known here through contributions from each member of the band (Art Taylor, drums & Doug Watkins, bass.) Taken at a medium tempo there is plenty of room to stretch out, and that room is exploited to the fullest in some of Morgan's most unique phrasing on records. While long valued as a collectors item, because of it's originally small release and limited distribution, Candy is now reissued on both CD and vinyl, audiophile and standard.

Wayne's Blues To Come

"When I was growing up, black connoted gloom, skepticism, no hope, no foreseeable way out of the muck and the mire. And the blues then to me were centered around gloom and darkness, too. The old blues and funk were good for their time and place, but what I'm trying to do now is to get the meat out of the old blues while also presaging the different kind of blues to come. In this particular piece (Charcoal Blues), I'm both looking back at the good things in those older blues and also laughing at that part of my background. The laughter is satirical but not mocking. It's laughter from the inside. During the earlier periods of the blues, moreover, you'd get to where there seemed to be a point of no return. Things were so bad that the only way to go was to laugh - that kept you going. There's some of that, too, in 'Charcoal Blues.' "

Wayne Shorter, Composer, Saxophonist.

Charcoal Blues, recorded by Wayne Shorter on Duke Ellington's birthday, April 29th, in 1964, appears on the album Night Dreamer. Widely acknowledged as a classic, Night Dreamer was recorded during the same period as the phenomenal Jazz Messenger's album Indestructible. Both sessions feature Lee Morgan on trumpet and Reggie Workman at the bass. By the end of that same year Shorter would join Miles Davis, making his debut as a member of the now mythic quintet of Hancock, Carter & Williams. The first recording of this group can be heard on the album Miles in Berlin.