The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission approved my nomination of Lee Morgan for a historical marker in December 2022. However, due to supply chain issues, fabrication of the marker was delayed. On the first day of Black History Month 2024, I received notice that Lee’s marker has been shipped.
During the Black History Month celebration at the historic Johnson House, an Underground Railroad site, I slipped on the hat that Lee Morgan wore during his photo shoot for “The Sixth Sense” album. The hat and other artifacts are in the possession of his nephew and executor of his estate, Raymond Darryl Cox.
Join the Tioga-Nicetown Library on Friday, February 9, 2024, 1pm to 3pm for a community celebration of Lee Morgan and the Power of Art.
The event is free and open to the public. To RSVP, go here.
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History designated “African Americansand the Arts” as the theme for Black History Month 2024. African Americans used art to both survive and escape enslavement:
The suffering of those in bondage gave birth to the spirituals, the nation’s first contribution to music. Blues musicians such as Robert Johnson, McKinley ‘Muddy Waters’ Morganfield and Riley “BB” B. King created and nurtured a style of music that became the bedrock for gospel, soul, and other still popular (and evolving) forms of music.
In his address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz festival, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the importance of jazz in paving the way for the Civil Rights Movement:
Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.
This is triumphant music.
[…]
Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.
Lee Morgan personified the power of art. Lee grew up in Tioga, a neighborhood in North Philly, surrounded by a coal yard, railroad tracks, factories belching smoke and warehouses. Art empowered him to see beyond his immediate environment and imagine a future as a jazz musician. Within months of graduating from Jules E. Mastbaum Area Vocational/Technical School, Lee joined the Dizzy Gillespie Band and recorded his first album for Blue Note Records.
An organizer of the Jazz and People’s Movement, Lee secured his place in history with “The Sidewinder,” a rare crossover hit that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000.
The Nicetown-Tioga Library and All That Philly Jazz are cohosting a community celebration of Lee Morgan and Tioga’s cultural heritage on Friday, February 9, 2024.
The event is free and open to the public. To reserve a spot, go here.
Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods. Legendary trumpeter Lee Morgan grew up on Madison Street in the Nicetown/Tioga neighborhood in North Philly. Lee’s block is a 20-minute walk from the intersection of Broad, Germantown and Erie (BGE).
In conjunction with traffic safety and beautification improvements to the iconic intersection, the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy (OACCE) issued a Call for Artists to compete for a site-specific public artwork. During an information meeting, Rachel Schwartzman, Percent for Art Rebuild Project Manager, shared the goals of the BGE Public Art Project.
Sundays were for teenagers. The record hops were promoted as “wholesome affairs that will help keep youngsters off the streets and out of trouble.”
The Arcade Ballroom was located in a two-story building constructed in 1920. There were retail stores on the ground floor and a dance hall on the second floor. The entrance to the dance hall was on Erie. The building and entrance sign are still there.
The finalists competing for the Percent For Art commission have been selected. OACCE invites the public to meet the artists and share their ideas for the BGE project. I plan to attend the community meeting to share this neighborhood history with the artists.
To reserve a spot for the community meeting, go here.
All That Philly Jazz was an official partner of the 1st Annual Music Landmarks Virtual Fest, organized by the American Music Landmarks Project. The virtual event celebrated the architectural legacy of American popular music.
The Douglass Hotel, former home of the Cotton Club, Show Boat and Bijou Café, was featured on Day 2.
The Aqua Lounge, future location of Lee Morgan’s historical marker, was featured on Day 4.
Ticket holders have access to all Fest content through November 30, 2023.
Edward Lee Morgan was born on July 10, 1938 in Philadelphia. Lee joined the ancestors on February 19, 1972.
A Google search returns 635,000,000 results about the legendary trumpeter. Bassist Ben Williams and emcee John Robinson tell Lee Morgan’s story in less than five minutes.
Join All That Philly Jazz and the Free Library of Philadelphia at a community celebration of Lee Morgan’s heavenly birthday.
Legendary jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1938. To commemorate Lee’s heavenly birthday, All That Philly Jazz and the Free Library of Philadelphia are cohosting a community celebration.
The community is invited to share memories of Lee Morgan, West Philly’s famed commercial and entertainment district, “the Strip,” and the Aqua Lounge.
The Aqua Lounge is where Lee gave his last hometown performance in October 1971, four months before his tragic death. Lee’s state historical marker will be installed in front of the former location of the jazz club on International Jazz Day 2024.
The community celebration will be held on Monday, July 10, 2-4pm, at the Lucien E. Blackwell West Philadelphia Regional Library, 125 S 52nd St. To register for the free event, please go here.
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 2023, 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 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 the Aqua Lounge. Lee Morgan had a week-long engagement here in October 1971. It was his last hometown performance before his tragic death four months later.
The Aqua Lounge was located on “the Strip” in West Philadelphia. This stretch of S 52nd Street was ceremoniously renamed Muhammad Ali Way in 2019.
UPDATE: Due to supply chain issues, fabrication of the marker was delayed. On the first day of Black History Month 2024, I received notice that Lee Morgan’s historical marker has been shipped.
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.
All That Philly Jazz 