I Called Him Morgan

If you love and understand real jazz--and especially if you love the long-ago New York City that gave birth to bebop and hard bop--there is nothing out there like this film. It is also fitting that a non-American made it, given that the United States has so turned its back on its greatest artistic creation and the musicians who created it. (Just compare this film with the shameful recent American documentary about Trane--with its pandering casting of Denzel Washington as narrator and utterly stupid and irrelevant choices of people to interview (Bill Clinton? Carlos Santana? Common? Cornell West? John Densmore?). From the late-night Larry Thomas jazz radio program and New York City snowfall and that opens I Called Him Morgan(and hey, whatever happened to that snow? It seems to have disappeared along with the jazz scene),the interviews with jazz musicians of Lee Morgan's time (one of whom who objects to the term "jazz," aptly preferring "black classical music"), and with it's beautifully paced rendering of acompelling American story of love and pain...for someone like me, who lived through all of that, it just could not have been better.

This haunting documentary about the life of a great jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan and his wife Helen is one I will not soon forget. Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin weaves the tale of their lives and their relationship through interviews with his friends and fellow musicians including saxophonist Wayne Shorter. He caps it off with an interview with Helen a month before her death in 1996. Through extraordinary black and white archival photographs, rare TV performances and an amazing soundtrack of Lee's music, we are transported to the NYC jazz scene from the 50s to the 70s.

As a music aficionado, I was aware of jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey, but not of Lee Morgan. The footage of his trumpet playing with these masters really drew me in. As one friend said in the film, "Lee really knew how to tell a story musically." His was an exceptional talent as a young teenager of 17. However, his addiction to heroin took him out and it wasn't until he met Helen, that he got back on his feet to play. Through her care, inspiration and love, she managed his career and uplifted him back to compose and play music and eventually form his own band, The Lee Morgan Quartet.

Lee had years of success playing not only clubs in the East but also on the West Coast. Some of my favorite parts of the documentary include footage on a TV show called "Soul", where he dedicates a piece to the activist Angela Davis entitled "Angela", and another TV show hosted by Steve Allen, a talk show host popular at the time. The other favorite part was with the jazz mobile workshop where he worked with young people on musical arrangements and gave them a chance to play and learn from him.

The twist and turns of Lee and Helen's life together end tragically when Lee plays at a popular club called Slugs, down in the East Village of NYC. On a snowy night in February 1972, his life is cut short at the young age of 33 by the woman who had brought him back to life. Following an altercation between sets, Morgan's common law wife Helen Moore, shot him.

I give this film 4 out of 5 stars and recommend it to ages 13 to 18 as well as adult jazz lovers. You can catch I Called Him Morgan on DVD and Blu-ray beginning October 31, 2017.

By Terry S., KIDS FIRST! Adult Juror.

I agree with the positive reviews of this movie, and simply want to add my appreciation for how human-centered it is. It is not simply a collection of names, dates, and music samples, like many other Jazz documentaries. The latter, too, are essential, however this documentary is largely about people who were simultaneously creating jazz culture and being shaped by both it and their fellow denizens of that world. Prior to watching this movie I had known only that Morgan's wife shot and killed him, and was very surprised to see her treated with compassion by the documentarian, as well as by various people who were there at the time and were friends with her and Morgan.

There is a lot to be learned about jazz from watching this film, but it's ultimately its poignancy which make it so compelling.

This was very good. It really set the mood for time periods of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and of course it was very informative on the music and personal life of Lee Morgan, a great jazz trumpet player. Great interviews with his fellow band members and wife also.

Surprising, I didn't know the musicians, nor their stories, sad, an action on impulse and destruction for a lifetime, I felt very sorry for Helen, children who are already born condemned to a suffering future, and when could they have risen again, an act thoughtless, interrupts a future that could have been happy... Love sometimes salvation, sometimes perdition... Beautiful and sad documentary...