Lee Morgan - Leeway (1989 Japanese Blue Note Vinyl LP)

Lee Morgan - Leeway | Vinyl LP - 1989 Blue Note Japanese Pressing (BST 84034, Toshiba EMI, Blue Note LP Last Reissue series)

Lee Morgan recorded Leeway on April 28, 1960 at Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio. He was 21 years old and had been a Jazz Messenger since he was 18, and the quintet he brought to this session reads like a selective history of late-1950s Blue Note. Jackie McLean plays alto saxophone. McLean had recorded Cool Struttin' for Blue Note two years earlier, and two years before that he'd played in the rhythm and blues bands around Harlem where he first met Sonny Clark. Bobby Timmons plays piano. Timmons was the Messengers' pianist during the band's most commercially successful period, the musician who wrote "Moanin'" and "Dat Dere." Paul Chambers plays bass. Chambers was simultaneously Miles Davis's bassist and the most recorded bass player on the Blue Note roster, appearing on sessions every week. And Art Blakey plays drums, Morgan's own bandleader, driving the session with the force that defined everything the Messengers recorded.

All four compositions are Morgan's. "These Are Soulful Days" opens with a theme that sits in the same bluesy post-bop territory as Morgan's best writing. "The Lion And The Wolff" is titled for Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, the co-founders of Blue Note Records, Lion the producer and Wolff the photographer, both present at the session. "Midtown Blues" is what it says. "Nakatini Suite" is the most extended piece, stretching across the whole of side B.

This is the 1989 Japanese pressing (BST 84034 / BN 4034), manufactured by Toshiba EMI as part of the Blue Note LP Last Reissue series, a limited edition programme that was among the final Japanese vinyl pressings of the Blue Note catalogue before the CD era.