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Lee Morgan's Sonic Boom

Soul Stream

By Soul Stream
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sidewinder Mentor

sidewinder

Posted
Posted (edited)

Love it ! I think the team of Morgan and David Newman is a very compatible one. Fathead plays with a harder edge than usual on this session - a typical BN late 60s hard bop gem. Cedar Walton in particular is also on good form too (but there again, isn't he always?)

Just popped my King vinyl of this on the platter. Side 1 smokes - 'Sneaky Pete', 'The Mercenary' and the title track. Fathead on particularly good form on these. A great ballad on side 2 'I'll Never Be The Same' featuring fine trumpet work to round it all off in the fashion of Morgan's better Blue Notes.

Edited by sidewinder
Stereojack Rookie

Stereojack

Posted
Posted

Anybody care to share any thoughts on Sonic Boom?

Special for the presence of David "Fathead" Newman, not a Blue Note regular. Musically, the album is consistent with many other Lee Morgan dates. Another session that sat in the can for at least 15 years before finally being released in the early 1980's.

kh1958 Experienced

kh1958

Posted
Posted (edited)

I really like the first side of the LP (Sneaky Pete, the Mercenary, Sonic Boom). The Lee Morgan/David Newman pairing is also on Lonnie Smith's Think.

Edited by kh1958
sal Newbie

sal

Posted
Posted

Its a fine album, but IMO not really different from any other Lee Morgan or hard bop session coming out at the time. The longer I listen to jazz, the more I appreciate the more unique sessions, like "Search for the New Land" or "The Procrastinator". But still, for Blue Note hard bop, its a good one.

tooter Newbie

tooter

Posted
Posted (edited)

I remember Peter Clayton introducing "Sneaky" on his radio show "Jazz Record Requests" many years ago and suggesting it might be his personal signature tune. And yet a less sneaky sounding person I could not imagine. The programme's never been the same since he died. He presided there for a long, long time and left a great legacy of announcing gems all over. I agree, a nice album. I like all of it, not only side 1.

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Edited by tooter
porcy62 Contributor

porcy62

Posted
Posted

I tend to agree with Sal, not the best BN Morgan date, but, hey, I never heard Lee playing 'bad', and the other players slightly changed the taste of 'typical BN hard bop'.

One curiousity, I can hear some 'Jarrettesque' moanin on the right channel on side 1 of my BN LT record, is it Higgins?

MartyJazz Newbie

MartyJazz

Posted
Posted

Anybody care to share any thoughts on Sonic Boom?

My thought is a simple one -

What's not to like?

Well, for one thing, I've never been a Fathead fan. Much too R&B for my tastes. Does he play in a more "Blue Note" type of vein, or is it more of the same?

Morganized Newbie

Morganized

Posted
Posted

I tend to agree with Sal, not the best BN Morgan date, but, hey, I never heard Lee playing 'bad', and the other players slightly changed the taste of 'typical BN hard bop'.

One curiousity, I can hear some 'Jarrettesque' moanin on the right channel on side 1 of my BN LT record, is it Higgins?

Don't know about the "moanin' " :g:g but I am in agreement with the everything else. You just don't get any bad Lee Morgan.....just some better than others!! ;);)

  • 3 months later...
Larry Kart Proficient

Larry Kart

Posted
Posted

Anyone else notice an odd glitch in Cuscuna's portion of the liner notes? He writes (or rather Blue Note today has him writing:) "'Sonic Boom' [i.e. the piece itself, not the whole album] ... was recorded on April 28, exactly two weeks later [than the other tunes on the date]. For some reason this seems to have been a pattern with a number of Lee Morgan dates. The band comes in, gets one tune and suddenly the session dissipates. The same personnel comes back a week or two later and runs through all the tunes effortlessly."

Which, given what they have Cuscuna saying in the first sentence, makes no sense.

But on the original LP issue of "Sonic Boom," that portion of Cuscuna's notes begins: "'Sonic Boom' ... was recorded on April 14, 1967, while all the other tunes were recorded exactly two weeks later" -- which makes the next two sentences about the "pattern with a number of Lee Morgan dates" perfectly reasonable. Weird -- because while I'm used to Blue Note of the 1979 era (when "Sonic Boom" was first issued) screwing up liner notes (they jumbled up the ones I wrote for Morgan's "Consequence" back then and have now reprinted them that way), why would they introduce an error into notes that made sense the first time around?

couw Newbie

couw

Posted
Posted

looks like someone has been typing off these liners and skipped a line finishing off the first half of "...recorded on April, 14..." with the second half of "recorded on April 28". These two phrases are just above eachother in the original lay-out.

mikeweil Mentor

mikeweil

Posted
Posted

Just noticed I never posted my comments on this. - It's a nice album, especially in the CD version with all the bonus material, but when I bought the LP back when it was finally issued, I felt somewhat disappointed. Instead of a usual Lee Morgan album with a hard bop Fathead I would have expected something more "fatheaded" ..... but when I consider how the latter played on his more straightahead dates, it's no surprise. I still think Fathead's Atlantic debut LP is excellent, and maybe his best and most characteristic. I would have liked an album like this with Lee on it.

jazzbo Grand Master

jazzbo

Posted
Posted

But. . . it wasn't Fathead's date. .. seems natural to me.

Been listening to a lot of Ray Charles lately. . . Fathead and Hank and Marcus et al just playing their asses off! :tup

mikeweil Mentor

mikeweil

Posted
Posted

But. . . it wasn't Fathead's date. .. seems natural to me.

Yes it is ..... still I think it would have been more interesting and a nice change if Lee had opened up to Fathead's approach a little more instead of just using him as a sideman - e.g. use the flute a little.

Dan Gould Mentor

Dan Gould

Posted
Posted

I have to admit, I never thought of it as a missed opportunity to hear Lee "Fatheaded", I was excitited at the thought of Fathead in a hard bop vein. Definitely gets :tup from me.

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