Lee Morgan - The Gigolo (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series 180g Vinyl LP)

Lee Morgan - The Gigolo | Vinyl LP - 2024 Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series Reissue (BST 84212, all-analog mastering by Kevin Gray, 180g pressing at Optimal Media)

Lee Morgan came back from heroin addiction with The Sidewinder in 1964 and then spent 1965 recording at a pace that suggested he had no intention of losing momentum again. The Gigolo was one of four full albums he cut that year, and the band here is one of his strongest: Wayne Shorter on tenor, Harold Mabern on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. "Yes I Can, No You Can't" opens with a boogaloo groove in the same lane as The Sidewinder's title track, but Morgan pushes harder into the upper register and Shorter's solo raises the temperature from the first bar. Shorter also contributed the composition "Trapped", a driving minor-key blues where the two horn players trade fours with real heat. "Speed Ball" is a more relaxed blues, and Shorter plays some of his best work on the date across both tracks. The album sat in Blue Note's vault for three years after it was recorded, finally appearing in 1968.

The B-side belongs to two very different pieces. The title track runs eleven minutes and is the session's centrepiece, a slow-building Morgan original with extended solos from both horns. It builds patiently, Mabern and Higgins keeping the foundation steady while Morgan and Shorter take turns pushing it forward. "You Go to My Head", the Coots and Gillespie standard that closes the album, is played as a ballad with real restraint, Morgan's solo anticipating the more reflective writing he would bring to Cornbread a few months later. The session was produced by Alfred Lion and recorded by Rudy Van Gelder at his Englewood Cliffs studio across two dates in June and July 1965.

This Classic Vinyl Series edition was mastered all-analog by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, with lacquers cut by Gray, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal Media in Germany. Liner notes by Nat Hentoff.