Aidan Sleigh
Mr. Kovalsky
English II H
December 2014
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan, the trumpet player, composer, and bandleader who was considered to be a quintessential hard-bopper, was one of the most important jazzmen of his time. In his fast paced life, he played with Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, released twenty-five albums of his own on the Blue Note label, and was a leader of the Jazz and People’s Movement. Few people accomplish half as much in their lives as Lee Morgan managed to fit into his thirty-three year life. He is undoubtedly worth studying for his life, music, compositions, and his efforts to change the public’s perception of jazz.
Lee Morgan was born on July 10, 1938 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Due to an unfortunate heroin addiction, Morgan was forced to leave the group in 1961 because he had become unreliable and his playing began to suffer. After this brief low point in his life and career, Morgan bounced back with ‘The Sidewinder.’ The title track of this 1963 album became his largest commercial success, reaching the top twenty-five on R&B billboards. The album itself is of great importance to Lee Morgan’s career and to the development of jazz. Before ‘The Sidewinder,’ almost none of the songs used on Lee Morgan’s albums were his original compositions. However, from this recording on his own compositions were generally featured, which explored the fusion of jazz with soul, in a hard-bop setting. This change in direction shines a light on Morgan’s perseverance, and desire to keep his music interesting.
Although Lee Morgan continued to preserve the hard-bop tradition throughout his career, his music got progressively more experimental as he grew older. The biggest changes were in the instrumentations he was writing for. He started using electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, and organ to achieve different effects. Some of his compositions leaned towards a more modern sound, but he was never able to fully abandon his authentic blues-focused hard bop
“Jazz is a complete lifestyle, something that you feel, something that you live.” (Ray Brown). In his short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin tells the story of a young jazz musician, and tries to capture the lifestyle described by jazz bassist Ray Brown in his character Sonny. Baldwin constantly limits the potential of Sonny as a character by placing him in situations that defy his personality, but make him a believable character because they are similar to experience of actual jazz musicians.
[the black musician] improvises, he creates, it comes from within” (Gerard 28). Despite Malcolm X’s criticism of the classically-trained musician’s inability to improvise, the European-influenced creole musicians began to learn to create variation within ragtime’s syncopated form. Likewise, blues musicians adopted parts of the genre of ragtime and implemented it into their call-and-response based music. The merging of these two styles of music occurred as a result of external socio-political pressure of Jim Crow segregation, but ultimately helped establish an innovative and swinging genre of jazz
Garrett A. Morgan was an African American, who was born in Paris, KY, March 4, 1877. He was 16 years old when he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. He spent most of his teenage life working as a handyman landowner. Then in 1895 moved from Cincinnati to Cleveland, where there he died July 27, 1963. When he moved from Cincinnati, he only had a sixth grade education.
The positive legacies that Charlie Parker left behind were his numerous record-ings that are still influential today, the fact that he redefined virtuosity with his style, helped define new bebop vocabulary, and he created a style that is rooted in the Kan-sas blues tradition. Charlie Parker’s recordings that he did with his musical group made an admirable and profound impression on the listeners and makers of jazz and he also became the first artist to make a recording with orchestral accompaniment. The nega-tive legacies Charlie Parker left behind were his influences of drug and alcohol on other musicians in hopes that they would play like him. His drug and alcohol addiction influ-enced other jazz musicians, causing jazz musicians lives and
Robert E.Lee was born in Virginia, he seem destined for military greatness. Despite his father to depart to the west Indies. Robert secured an appointment to the U.S Military Academy at West Point and two years later, married with Mary Custis. He was a exceptional officer and military engineer in the U.S Army for 32 years. During war with Mexico, Lee distinguished himself earning 3 brevets for gallantry and emerging from the conflict with the rank of colonel.
Jazz has shaped the world we know today. Jazz would have never been as popular without the help of the famous musicians: Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. These people helped spread the new genre through radio, railroads, and the records that they played. Where did this all start? The jazz age began in New Orleans where a certain King was born.
Robert Edward Lee was born in Virginia to Henry Lee (father) and Ann Hill Carter (mother). Both of Robert’s parents were very respected, wealthy people. His father was
Baldwin 's "Sonny 's Blues" and Hurston 's “How it feels to be Colored Me" both take a captivating look at how jazz music portrays such an important role in the lives of these characters and their journey through unyielding times of change. In this essay, I will be dissecting the lives of Sonny from “Sonny’s Blues” and Zora from “How it feels to be Colored Me” and the significance that jazz music has played in each of their lives. James Baldwin 's "Sonny 's Blues" begins with the narrator on the subway reading his brother 's name, Sonny, splashed across the morning paper. It had been heroin that got Sonny arrested. Throughout sequins of cascading events, the narrator and his brother Sonny will reveal the differences between the two of them.
Morgan because I have always wondered who invented the traffic signal and the gas mask. If he wasn’t alive millions and billions of lives would be dead. Garrett. Augustus. Morgan born on March 4, 1877 in Paris, Kentucky.
Camille Burton Dr. Greene English 1010-3 22 November 2014 Jazz Artists in New Orleans The early development of jazz is closely tied with the community and is a very important part of the history of New Orleans. New Orleans is seen to be the home of new jazz during the 1900's.
He sang softly in a manner reminiscent of Lonnie Johnson, a blues musician and jazz singer, and his guitar style was also more ragtime influenced. Because of Robert Johnson’s specific types of expression in blues music, many other later jazz singers, musicians and guitarist were affected by Robert
In this paper, I plan to examine the influences that Miles Davis had on jazz. Starting with the bebop era, when his career first began, to his final collaboration released following his death. While in school Davis had learned how to play the trumpet, and following graduation he attended Julliard in New York. However, he dropped out of Julliard in 1945 in order join one of bebop’s pioneers, Charlie Parker. It was
In life, there are few things as organic as jazz music. With its raw sound and scrappy roots, one cannot help but feel life head-on whilst witnessing players produce such a sound right before their eyes. Its origins and arch are a product of the United States’ national culture and identity. Jazz exists not only as a deeply rooted form of art but as a cultural marker, particularly during its commercial peak in the first half of the 20th century. Its impact transcends borders, and it is one of the most beloved musical genres worldwide.
Jazz is most often thought to have been started in the 1920s as this explosive movement, but that is in fact not the case. Starting in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many African American musicians have started to explore their taste in improvising, and where better to do that than New Orleans (Anderson). Before the 1920s these jazz musicians have already been going around sharing the unique sound, but up until then, jazz had remained majorly in New Orleans. Interestingly during this period, a common jazz band would consist of a cornet, a clarinet, a trombone, and a rhythm section when at this period of time the clarinet is not commonly associated with being a jazz instrument, it moved into being the saxophone rather. A big
The genre of jazz music was first born out of the woes and suffering of the then modern black society. Sonny’s brother on the other hand chose to be an algebra teacher; he was respected by the white culture and his teaching credential earned him the right to be accepted. His aspiration to become an African American teacher implied that his desire was to hide from prejudice, unlike Sonny who really embraced his ethnicity and African American culture. An algebra teacher is very logical and structured by nature, whereas a musician is more free spirited and creative by nature.