A look at murder, childhood hepatitis .. and a landmark recording, after the jump:
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Two interstellar musicians met tragic ends many years ago — a trumpeter was murdered by his common-law wife at a nightclub he was performing at, and a drummer in a pioneering quartet who became a prolific session man (with almost no works under his own name), had two liver transplants to overcome a case of hepatitis from his youth … them succumbed while waiting for a third liver. Yet they collaborated on a classic song that Terry Gross of Fresh Air noted upon the drummer’s death .. and their stories deserve a fresh look.
Lee Morgan (born in 1938 in Philadelphia) was one of the best trumpeters of his generation; fusing modern jazz along with blues, R&B and early funk/free jazz that kept his music changing. His musical hero was Clifford Brown, who was killed in a car accident in 1956 at only age twenty-five. Lee Morgan graduated that same year from high school and was seen by Dizzy Gillespie after he appeared in local jam sessions, hiring him for his band. He allowed the young man to solo on his famous tune A Night in Tunisia— which one often heard on the radio during the outbreak of the Arab Spring.
When Dizzy broke-up his big band in 1958 (due to changing economics) Lee Morgan finished his apprenticeship as a member of the noted bandleader Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers— whose other alumni include Chuck Mangione, Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Chick Corea — where he remained until 1961.
He left music to kick a major drug habit, before returning in 1963 where he enjoyed success at the venerable Blue Note record label. And even though the jazz era became smaller in the post-British Invasion days, his albums always sold well from 1964-1971. He continued to battle drugs but was relatively clean by 1972.
On jazz radio, whenever a set ends and the host lists the personnel on the songs, one would often hear “And Billy Higgins on drums” (not unlike rock radio which would often hear “And Nicky Hopkins on piano”).
Born in Los Angeles in 1936, Billy Higgins had a case of hepatitis in his youth that he had overcome to becoming a popular drummer — in his early years in R&B bands (backing visiting headliners such as Bo Diddley and Amos Milburn) before joining a high school friend in the Jazz Messiahs — trumpeter Don Cherry (the step-father of hip-hop singer Neneh Cherry). Higgins also found work in the burgeoning LA session recording scene.
In 1958, Higgins and Cherry joined the avante-garde saxophonist Ornette Coleman, whose 1959 The Shape of Jazz to Come was a landmark album in the ‘free jazz’ movement, which upset many traditionalists. Now Billy Higgins was in a prominent touring band as well as a prolific New York studio session player.
A 1961 drug bust led to the loss of his cabaret card— a permit that NYC nightclubs required from 1920-1967 — and so he left Coleman’s band to focus on session work. He became the de-facto house drummer at the aforementioned Blue Note records: and the 1960’s were the label’s most prolific years. He worked with nearly all of the star musicians — one of whom was the bassist Bill Lee (the father of Spike Lee) — which is why his name is recited so often on radio.
He returned to LA in 1978, after Blue Note was disbanded (until a triumphant return years later under Bruce Lundvall, and later Don Was) and besides his session work, he was on the jazz faculty of UCLA. He almost never led an ensemble recording himself; one time was his 1984 album Mr. Billy Higgins.
Alas, in the 1990’s he began to suffer liver disease stemming from the hepatitis from his youth, and in 1996 underwent a liver transplant. His body rejected it, and he underwent a second liver transplant the very next day. He recuperated and began to play again (having a reunion with Ornette Coleman). Then in 2001 his new liver began to fail … and Billy Higgins died of pneumonia in May — at age sixty-four — while awaiting yet a third liver donor.
Returning to Lee Morgan: in addition to drug issues, he and his common-law wife Helen had a troubled life together (she had tried to commit suicide years earlier) although she was the driving force behind his rehabilitation from heroin. Lee Morgan was also prone to infidelity, and on February 19th, 1972 he was performing at a (long defunct) offbeat nightclub in NYC’s East Village, Slug’s (which former Cream bassist Jack Bruce played at three years earlier, on the same day that his former bandmates Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker played at Madison Square Garden as Blind Faith).
There was a snowstorm that night, and Lee Morgan’s car crashed that night en route, which might have seemed the low point. Lee Morgan had been dating a new woman (Judith Johnson) — infuriating Helen, after all she felt that she had done for him … and that night she brought a gun to Slug’s (which he had given her, for protection). She had a confrontation with Lee and the girlfriend and she shot Lee Morgan dead at the age of only thirty-six. She spent a brief time in jail before being paroled, then went into exile before her death in March, 1996 at the age of seventy. A documentary I Called Him Morgan was released in 2017.
Lee Morgan and Billy Higgins performed on Lee’s landmark 1964 song The Sidewinder. This was a ten-minute instrumental that became Lee Morgan’s signature tune and a major hit for Blue Note records — possibly saving it from bankruptcy, as the jazz idiom began to fade — with its blend of modern jazz, blues and soul. When Terry Gross of Fresh Air concluded her program after the death of Billy Higgins in 2001, she noted his passing and (rather boldly) suggested it was the drumming of Billy Higgins — not Lee Morgan — that drove this song into stardom. Listen (at least to the first two minutes) and judge for yourself.
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From McGovern78:
In the front-page story about the latest-and-greatest centrist position on the impeachment trial — this lucid beauty by Hannah is succinct.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the front-page story about Rep Dan Lipinski’s Democratic primary fundraising letter….. which looks more like a GOP one — benamery21 details the sort of juggling act that he does to appeal to different audiences.
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