The trumpeter Lee Morgan was a modern jazz legend, the sort who seemed destined to play in a place like The Milwaukee Jazz Gallery. But he died too soon, in 1972. Six year later, the long-celebrated nightclub and community center opened.

All is not lost. Those who remember Lee—and those who might discover his rip-roaring genius can finally experience him—in the virtual flesh, in the Jazz Gallery’s current incarnation.

The Chuck LaPaglia Jazz Film/Live Music Series continues on Thursday, Jan. 15, with a 6:30 p.m. screening of I Called Him Morgan at the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, 926 E. Center St. The award-winning 2016 Swedish documentary directed by Kasper Collin features clips from Lee and Helen Morgan, Wayne Shorter and many others.

Here’s IMDB’s estimable storyline for the film: “On a snowy night in February 1972, celebrated jazz musician Lee Morgan was shot dead by his common-law wife Helen during a gig at a club in New York City. The murder sent shockwaves through the jazz community, and the memory of the event still haunts those who knew the Morgans.”

Love Letter

This feature documentary by filmmaker Kasper Collin is a love letter to two unique personalities and the music that brought them together. A film about love, jazz and America.”

Official trailer may be seen here:

Tickets will not be sold to the event, but a charitable donation of $15 for the general public and $10 for students is recommended. Seating is limited.

The film screening will be followed by a presentation on innovations in sound engineering and the performance of the Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers standard, “Moanin’” by pianist Trace Ellington of Mood Indigo Recordings in Milwaukee. “Moanin’” features Morgan on trumpet on the original recording that Ellington will accompany. By the way, Milwaukee-based Ellington is a direct descendant of Duke Ellington.

Aplin also wants to give younger area jazz musicians “opportunities to perform on our historic stage and to expand their jazz repertoires. We want to preserve and add to Milwaukee’s proud jazz history; and honor Chuck LaPaglia, who staged so many great performances by jazz legends when he owned the Jazz Gallery back in the ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Revelatory Music Films

The Jazz Gallery’s recent sceening of Chasin’ the Trane was a revelation for me a veteran jazz fan and critic, both stylistically and for the musical film clips of saxophone giant John Coltrane—both classic and rare—and for the insights by interviewees.

That show included a brief talk and Q&A with the film’s director John Scheinfeld and a performance by members of a Milwaukee Jazz Institute student ensemble.

The series has previously presented the Miles Davis documentary Birth of the Cool, Clint Eastwood’s brilliant and harrowing Charlie Parker bio-pic Bird and Lady Sings the Blues with Diana Ross as Billie Holiday.

The Guardian’ s Ammar Kalia commented in 2022 on the forthcoming Morgan film: “A masterful and much-needed act of remembrance, bringing Morgan’s genius back to life, as well as examining his downfall with a compassion that avoids reducing its tragedy into a true crime saga.”

Frankly, the film’s noirish promotional photo haunts like the greatest murders do: The trumpeter is all dapper and elusive arrogance. Beside him stands the woman who would murder him—mysterioso in shades, and a big stylish hat, and pursed lips of haughty ambivalence about the man gripping her perhaps a bit too tightly. Actually, Morgan betrays more, a sort of punkish insecurity, a curiosity about his fate, artistic or otherwise.

Impressions aside, this was a guy who transformed when the mouthpiece hit his lips. Then the brashness leapt out like a hidden panther going for the kill. Yet Morgan could also play as pretty as a morning sunrise. He emerged in the 1950s as the leading trumpeter of the still-influential hard bop style.

He’s best known for his huge crossover hit “The Sidewinder.” He was also crucial part of an early 1960s edition of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. His popular albums for Blue Note records also included Cornbread, The Rumproller, The Gigolo and Live at the Lighthouse. Among his more ambitious albums was Search for the New Land.

I once wrote a short story, “The L.A. to Atlanta How-Long Bues,” about an itinerant jazz sideman trumpeter named Stan. At one point, a desolate Stan says to his girlfriend, “Sometimes all I want to do is listen to Lee Morgan play trumpet.” When I wrote the story that was very much my sentiment. It’s still holds true.

Here’s the rest of the scheduled film series. Each film is followed by a brief live jazz performance:

February 19:  Mo’ Better Blues (1990)

March 19: The Cotton Club (1984)

April 16: ‘Round Midnight (1986)

May 21: Born to Be Blue (2015)

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This article was first published in The Shepherd Express, here: https://shepherdexpress.com/film/reviews/jazzman-lee-morgan-documentary-screening-at-jazz-gallery/