Lee Morgan – Here's Lee Morgan (OJC)

Lee Morgan's Here's Lee Morgan arrived in 1960, the same year the trumpeter also recorded for Blue Note, and it catches him already working with the confidence of a seasoned hard-bop bandleader despite still being only 21. Released on Vee-Jay as his 10th album, it places Morgan in a lean sextet setting with Clifford Jordan, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Art Blakey — a lineup that helps explain why the session sits so comfortably in the hard-bop tradition of the period.

Across six tracks, the album balances drive and poise rather than sheer flash. Morgan wrote four of the pieces, including the brisk opener "Terrible T" and the easy-rolling "Mogie," while the set also makes room for a reading of "I'm a Fool to Want You" and Wayne Shorter's "Bess." What stands out is how naturally Morgan's bright, incisive trumpet fits with Jordan's tenor and the famously assured rhythm team of Kelly, Chambers, and Blakey.

AllMusic hears the record as "good solid hard bop," and that feels exactly right: not a career-defining blockbuster, but a sharp snapshot of Morgan's rapidly developing style at a moment when he was moving beyond his early Clifford Brown influence into a more individual voice. This Craft edition also helps bring a less-discussed 1960 date back into circulation in a form that suits the music's direct, unfussy strength.

Features

• LP, 180g, Stereo, Original Jazz Classics Series
• AAA lacquers cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio
• Pressed at RTI
• Stoughton Tip-On jacket with obi strip