I have one Lee Morgan 45 but he is featured on three of the Art Blakey singles I have. I played the Morgan record, “Hey Chico,” last night while we were preparing dinner and Peggi said it sounded like Frug music. She demonstrated it.
I didn’t know much about Lee Morgan, so I googled him and found Ethan Iverson’s Substack article on the movie I Called Him Morgan. Morgan’s wife preferred to call him “Morgan,” and then she shot him at Slugs on the far east side of lower Manhattan.
We watched the movie last night and loved it. Fellow musicians and friends paint a loving picture of Lee. He was a fully formed musician at eighteen. Helen tells her side of the story, and together they paint a picture of Slugs, where nearly every jazz great of that foundational era performed.
If that is not enough up top there are more Slugs handbills here.
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the location of the club in that era matches the artist roster for total ‘real-deal-ness’