I Called Him Morgan

The two negative reviews here are based on the individual reviewers' ignorance of jazz music in general, and the life and music of Lee Morgan in particular. I found this film arresting and completely engaging, even if the pace is incremental. In my view, this is an excellent documentary of the life and TIMES of this great musician. For someone who is not really interested in jazz music of the fifties and sixties, this might seem interminably slow and pointless, but for people who love this period of music history it is told with reverence, love and care.

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 recently started listening to Lee Morgan's wonderful music but didn't know anything about him. This documentary is a great look into his career, his storied relationship with his wife, and the events surrounding his death. Unfortunately, the documentary doesn't have an abundance of photos or clips to work with. They do a pretty good job working with what they have, but it does make me wonder if the length should have been cut given the gap of artifacts to use. I also wonder why they didn't dive more into Morgan's childhood.

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...

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.