Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder (1984 Japanese Blue Note Vinyl LP)

Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder | Vinyl LP - 1984 Japanese Toshiba EMI Reissue (BNJ-71017 / BST 84157, The Hits of Blue Note Part 1)

• Blue Note’s best-selling album and the record that saved the label from bankruptcy, the title track’s boogaloo groove becoming a crossover pop hit and establishing the template for a generation of soul-jazz recordings
• Five Morgan originals with Joe Henderson on tenor, Barry Harris on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, all recorded in a single session at Van Gelder’s studio in December 1963
• Japanese Toshiba EMI pressing from The Hits of Blue Note Part 1 series

Lee Morgan was twenty-five and had just returned to full-time recording after a period away from the scene. Joe Henderson was twenty-six, recently out of the military, and beginning his own run on Blue Note. Billy Higgins, Barry Harris and Bob Cranshaw completed a rhythm section that the label’s own site later described as an indelible support team. The entire album was cut on December 21, 1963 at Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio. According to drummer Billy Hart, Morgan said he had recorded the title track as filler to use up remaining tape at the end of the session, and was bemused when it became his biggest hit. Blue Note initially pressed 4,000 copies, which sold out within days. The track reached number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, peaked at number 10 on the album chart, and generated enough income to keep the label solvent through the mid-1960s. The boogaloo beat became so commercially successful that Blue Note executives delayed release of several subsequent Morgan albums while trying to manufacture another Sidewinder.

The rest of the album is not the title track, and that is fine. “Totem Pole” is a Latin-flavoured piece with harmonised lines from Morgan and Henderson that the LondonJazzCollector review singled out as the best track on the record. Harris steps beyond accompaniment with an extended solo that draws on McCoy Tyner’s approach. “Gary’s Notebook”, named for a friend of Morgan’s, is a tight, intricate blues where Morgan and Henderson trade angular phrases over Cranshaw’s walking bass. “Boy, What a Night” shifts into 3/4 time, with audible chatter from the band in the background, and “Hocus-Pocus” closes with straight-ahead hard bop, Higgins getting room to stretch while the horns play out the melody. All five compositions are Morgan’s. Harris’s piano throughout blends technical proficiency with a gut-level blues feeling that sits perfectly between Morgan’s bright, punchy trumpet and Henderson’s more angular, jagged tenor.

This is the 1984 Japanese reissue on Toshiba EMI (BNJ-71017), from The Hits of Blue Note Part 1 series.