Marcyiiena Morgan

Morgan James has announced "A Very Magnetic Christmas". Called "the most promising young vocalist to come along so far this century" by The Wall Street Journal, James cemented her passion for classic soul in her 2020 album Memphis Magnetic. And like Memphis Magnetic, "A Very Magnetic Christmas", was recorded live to analog tape at Memphis Magnetic Recording in Tennessee and features several legendary Memphis studio musicians. The resulting ten tracks combine James' soulful take on classics like "O Holy Night," and "White Christmas;" re-imagined favorites like Clarence Carter's spicy "Back Door Santa," and Otis Redding/Lou Rawls' "Merry Christmas Baby"; and three originals, co-written by James and her husband/collaborator/arranger Doug Wamble. A full tracklist is below. James recorded the full album in front of a live studio audience.

This set is one of the finest Lee Morgan records. The great trumpeter contributes five challenging compositions ("Search for the New Land," "The Joker," "Mr. Kenyatta," "Melancholee," and "Morgan the Pirate") that deserve to be revived. Morgan, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, guitarist Grant Green, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Billy Higgins are all in particularly creative form on the fresh material, and they stretch the boundaries of hard bop (the modern mainstream jazz of the period). The result is a consistently stimulating set that rewards repeated listenings.

The Complete Live at the Lighthouse is an expansive collection that presents for the very first time all 12 sets of music the legendary trumpeter Lee Morgan’s quintet with saxophonist Bennie Maupin, pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jymie Merritt, and drummer Mickey Roker recorded during their historic engagement at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California from July 10-12, 1970. This definitive edition produced by Zev Feldman and David Weiss comes in an 8-CD set and a limited-edition 12-LP all-analog 180g vinyl set that encompasses 33 performances including more than 4 hours of previously unreleased music that lets the listener relive the experience of being in the club for every exhilarating moment. Both sets include a beautiful booklet featuring interviews, essays, and rare photos.

Although released in 1971, the debut self-titled album by Spirit of John Morgan was actually recorded two years earlier, before the spirit of the '60s dissipated into the excesses of the '70s. But even back in 1969, the British quartet were already fish out of water, gasping for R&B in a Technicolor age of psychedelia. So they created their own, an entire album's worth of strong, shadowed, R&B numbers underlit by magnificent musicianship and powerful rhythms. The set opener, a menacing cover of Graham Bond's "I Want You," is a case in point, stalker-like in its intensity, with John Morgan's organ conjuring up a phantom of the opera from which there is no escape.

Morgan was formed in the early '70s by two musicians (Morgan Fisher and Maurice Bacon). Morgan's first album ("Nova Solis") is typical '70s progressive rock, with the predominant sound of Fisher's keyboards (Hammond-Organ, Moog, VCS-3 synthesizer, mellotron, electric piano, piano) and a strong rhythmic section. There are some similarities to the early '70s prog rock of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, without the pop hooks found in much of Yes and ELP's songwriting.
A second record, initially titled "Brown Out", was recorded in 1973, and is a mix of crazed, hysterical-toned synthesizer solos, winding high operatic vocals, pretentious pseudo-classical keyboard art-rock à la ELP, and artly, experimental song structures in the mold of more serious artists like King Crimson or Gentle Giant.

Both John Hicks and Frank Morgan passed away shortly after making the recordings gathered here: pianist Hicks in May 2006 and alto saxophonist Morgan in December 2007. They had both spent the preceding decades living very different lives: Morgan, as is well known within the jazz community, was a heroin addict to whom incarceration was no stranger. He disappeared from the scene for an interminably long 30 years before finding his way back from his problems and into the music world in 1985. Hicks, meanwhile, was prolific throughout his multi-decade career, recording many albums as a leader and working alongside many of the genre's greats as a sideman. This set of seven tracks does not consist entirely of duets: Morgan appears on only four of them and Hicks plays solo piano on the others (there are no other musicians involved)…