In 2011, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated April 30 as International Jazz Day “in order to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe.”
The U.S. State Department sponsored jazz icons, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones and Sarah Vaughan, to travel the world as cultural ambassadors to combat racially-charged Soviet propaganda during the Cold War. Their mission was at the intersection of race, civil rights and public diplomacy.
To commemorate International Jazz Day, I nominated Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder for inclusion in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Recordings selected are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”
Excitement is building as we plan the unveiling of Lee Morgan’s historical marker.
We still have to finalize the marker text. Lee was an innovator so I asked ChatGPT, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot, about the legendary jazz trumpeter. With the exception of “common-law wife,” the response is eerily accurate. A common-law marriage is not permitted in New York State. In any case, Lee was legally married to Kiko Yamamoto at the time of his death.
When I asked whether Lee has a historical marker, ChatGPT made stuff up. In AI-speak, the chatbot “hallucinated.”
In an interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” cognitive scientist and AI researcher Gary Marcus called it “authoritative bullshit”:
I actually like to call what it creates “authoritative bullshit.” It blends the truth and falsity so finely together that, unless you’re a real technical expert in the field they’re talking about, you don’t know.
Check out the full episode, “ChatGPT: Artificial Intelligence, chatbots and a world of unknowns.”
The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission approved the nomination of jazz trumpeter, composer and activist Lee Morgan for a historical marker.
Lee will join John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, and his union, Union Local 274 of the American Federation of Musicians, with a historical marker in Philadelphia.
The blue-and-gold marker will be installed in front of the former location of Music City where as a high school student Lee participated in instructional clinics and Tuesday night jam sessions with jazz luminaries, including Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Buddy Rich, Art Blakey and Miles Davis.
On June 26, 1956, trumpeter Clifford Brown left from Music City for a gig in Chicago. Brownie, along with pianist Richie Powell and Powell’s wife, Nancy, were killed in a car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
There has been an outpouring of interest in attending the unveiling (Date TBD). The date and time of the dedication ceremony will be announced at least 60 days in advance. We will send a monthly update to registered guests.
The dedication ceremony will be followed by a reception at which a special announcement will be made. Please make a donation of $50.00 to help defray expenses.
Donations of $500.00 will be listed as Community Sponsors on social media and All That Philly Jazz.
If you are unable to attend the reception but would like to support efforts to preserve Lee Morgan’s legacy in public memory, please make a donation.
Please click on the image to make a donation with PayPal, debit or credit card. Thank you!
Sadly, all good things must come to an end. So I will close out Black Music Month with “The Blue Note Show” which aired on PBS’ Soul! television series on January 26, 1972.
The episode featured Blue Note Records artists Horace Silver, Bobbi Humphrey, Cecil Bridgewater, Bob Crenshaw, Billy Harper, Harold Mabern, and Andy and Salome Bey. Philadelphia natives Lee Morgan and Jymie Merritt, and long-time resident Mickey Roker were in the house. At 33:58 Silver tells host Ellis Haizlip that he formed his quintet after “the fellow that owned the Showboat in Philadelphia called me and said he wanted me to get a group together and come in for a week.”
Lee Morgan’s appearance on Soul! was one of his last performances. He was shot and killed less than a month later. But his legacy lives on. We have nominated the legendary trumpeter for a Pennsylvania historical marker. We are hopeful the nomination will be approved when the committee meets in September December 2022.
Trumpeter Lee Morgan was killed by his former paramour at Slugs’, a New York City jazz club, on February 19, 1972. While only 33, Lee’s legacy includes collaborating as a sideman on John Coltrane’s Blue Train and Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers’ Moanin’. As a bandleader, Lee recorded 30 albums for Blue Note Records, including The Sidewinder, one of the label’s best-selling albums.
Lee’s nephew, Raymond Darryl Cox, and I visited his grave on the 50th anniversary of his death. Lee was briefly united with his cherished flugelhorn.
To commemorate this milestone, All That Philly Jazz, along with Blue Note Records, Lee’s family, Mastbaum Area Vocational Technical High School alumni, business leaders, and Lee Morgan scholars and enthusiasts have nominated the legendary trumpeter for a Pennsylvania historical marker. A historical marker recognizes people, places and events that have had a measurable impact on their times, and are of statewide or national significance.
Cem Kurosman, Vice President of Publicity at Blue Note Records/Capitol Music Group, said:
Fifty years after his death, Lee Morgan’s music remarkably continues to grow in stature. There remains a high level of interest from jazz fans all over the world in Lee’s life and music, which has fueled our efforts to reissue his Blue Note catalog so that his music can keep finding new generations of listeners. The expanded box set The Complete Live at the Lighthouse was widely acclaimed and sold out shortly after its release in August 2021. A historical marker would be a long overdue public memorial celebrating one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time.
Raymond Darryl Cox, executor of the Estate of Lee Morgan, said:
My mother, Ernestine Morgan Cox, was Lee’s older sister. She bought Lee his first trumpet and exposed him to jazz at the Earle Theater. JazzTimes named The Complete Live at the Lighthouse the number two historical album of 2021. The flugelhorn with which Uncle Lee posed on the album cover is a treasured family heirloom. Uncle Lee lives forever in our hearts. If the nomination for a Pennsylvania historical marker is approved, Lee Morgan will live forever in public memory.
Jazz master and trumpeter Cullen Knight met Lee in 1956. Knight was entering Mastbaum AVTS and Morgan was graduating from the storied high school. Knight said:
Lee’s heart and soul went into his music, and that’s what came out. Although Lee’s life was cut short, he said what he wanted to say with his trumpet and his compositions, and that was plenty.
UPDATE: The review process for historical marker nominations ends in September with notification made shortly thereafter. This year, the review process has been extended until December. So we won’t know whether the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has approved the nomination until the end of the year. Let’s hope it’s a Merry Christmas for the Lee Morgan Family and Lee’s fans.
In the coming months, we will make an announcement about legendary trumpeter and Philadelphia native Lee Morgan.
It’s driving me crazy that I can’t share the good news now. Instead, I will share Stop Driving Us Crazy, an animated safe driving PSA produced by the General Board of Temperance of the Methodist Church. Released in 1959, the soundtrack was scored by another Philadelphian, Benny Golson, and performed by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers featuring Lee Morgan on trumpet.
The Red Hill Inn was located in Pennsauken, New Jersey.
The jazz spot played host to jazz luminaries, including Nina Simone, Anita O’Day, Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday and Sonny Rollins.
Mel Tormé recorded a live album at the Red Hill Inn on March 24-25, 1962.
The first DownBeat readers’ poll was published in 1952. Past winners with Philadelphia roots include John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Lee Morgan, Jaco Pastorius, Sun Ra, Bessie Smith and Jimmy Smith.
Voting is open to subscribers of DownBeat magazine or their free eNewsletter. The poll closes on September 10. To vote, go here.
Located in the Tioga neighborhood in North Philly, the 1400-seat Tioga Theater opened in 1915 and operated as a movie theater until circa 1950.
In the late 1950s and ‘60s, top jazz artists performed here including John Coltrane, James Moody, Zoot Simms, Donald Byrd, Sarah Vaughan, Kenny Rodgers and Cannonball Adderley. On January 12, 1958, Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Morgan headlined a concert. The Philadelphia Tribune reported:
What began as a sizable crowd for Sunday’s jazz matinee concert at the Tioga Theater, became what is known in the newspaper business as a SRO (standing room only) gathering by nightfall. It all goes to prove that Rock-N-Roll hasn’t as yet completely captivated the musical world–and modern jazz is nowhere near dead.
The Tioga was repurposed and later abandoned by Deliverance Evangelical Church in 1973. It has been vacant ever since.
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