DelightfuLee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan
The News Review:
- DelightfuLee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan
- Music Review | Fred Hersch
- In the clubs with Jeff Lofton
DelightfuLee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan
All About Jazz PA
Yet the biography despite this is of abiding interesting and worthy of being in all jazz lovers’ libraries—especially perhaps of those who could learn not to make the same mistakes Morgan made. It is clear that Morgan was a rebel with a cause but one who had a serious flaw that bears careful consideration from other young up and coming jazz musicians who may be enticed by too much fast living so close to the edge. Morgan’s intent as stated time and time again in the biography was to use his music to try and soothe the savage beast in particular society’s disrespect for jazz music and jazz musicians and racial discrimination. DelightfuLee suggests that while Morgan may have very well done that his use of drugs to escape reality may have diminished his effectiveness. f course this is nothing new to jazz history; McMillan is writing about a life style that has been repeated by many other creative people regardless of color (another example being the white cornetist Bix Beiderbecke). What is difficult to understand about Morgan’s life is his habit of biting the hand that fed him. By most accounts he was what some on the street call “a greasy junkie” someone who would do almost anything to get his hand on a bag of heroin.
Related from Medcylopaedia: Mindray Medical to Present at the 27th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare …
Music Review | Fred Hersch
New York Times United States
But in Fred Hersch’s music which he plays as part of a quintet at the Village Vanguard this week the two elements are balanced pretty perfectly. Hersch a pianist comes with a sensibility well informed by the best American composers in jazz theater and films by Brazilian music by classical music. His taste is new; everybody in the band works on the crumbly line between the bop tradition and free-form improvisation. Hersch is old-fashioned in that melody’s development and resolution remain important to him no matter what the context. So in a new piece called “Kijito Mwanana” — a Swahili phrase meaning “gentle stream” — the repeated piano line and the babbling melodies moving through all the instruments onstage didn’t lead toward percussive minimalism.
In the clubs with Jeff Lofton
Austin 360 TX
) I talked with Lofton via e-mail last week. American-Statesman: Are there particular periods of Miles Davis’ music that you feel more affinity toward than others or is it the totality of his work that drew you to him? Jeff Lofton: Although I enjoy all of Miles Davis’ work the era I have the most affinity for is the mid-to late-1950s and early 1960s. To me this is the most lyrical point in all of jazz music. Not only do you have Miles Davis creating melodic passages and lines in his soloing you have the emergence of the Coltrane sound. Also that was the high point of bebop so there were so many players creating new sounds and forging ahead with bebop and hard pop and even avant-garde forms of jazz. Are there genres you have yet to explore that you would like to try? Although I’ve explored many forms of music including R&B hip-hop reggae rock classical traditional folk music and even a little country all of these musical forms owe a great deal to jazz. So most of what I’m interested in playing and promoting is jazz.