Ill Wind

Jackie McLean (alto sax), Hank Mobley (tenor sax), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Larry Ridley (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). From the album Cornbread (1967).

Lee Morgan had a different style from other trumpet players of his time. His sound was devastating on the swift tracks and relaxed on the slow ones. His technique surpassed that of other instrument partners and at the age of 19 participated in John Coltrane’s essential album Blue Train. In 1958 the producer Alfred Lion called the Jazz Messengers of Art Blakey, with Lee Morgan on trumpet, to record Moanin’, the main emblem of hard bop. Alfred Lion and Max Margulis had founded Blue Note Records in 1939, known for promoting modern jazz and the excellent quality of their recordings by their sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder.

Morgan influenced many trumpeters of the decades of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. He was an exceptional composer, improvising strange and dazzling lines with his imagination. He was not dominant, every musician had his own space to improvise. His technique was very precise and unusual because of the use of tricks that made him original and unrepeatable. This and his soft and melodic playing placed him on the list of the best performers of this instrument.

The theme has a slow tempo and the introduction is made first by the rhythm section and then the wind section joins in. Morgan exposes it with mute on the trumpet, maybe as a tribute to Miles Davis, and it has a blues flavor. The melody is simple and easy to remember, and the bridge is played by Mobley. Hancock enters to make a solo that is paused at first, then accelerates and plays stronger chords to later return to serenity. Morgan follows him playing more decisively with a suggestive and well-built peech. Next Morgan arrives with a brief, but beautiful solo, and Morgan returns playing some more phrases to finish the theme.