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TWO FANTASTIC JAZZ DOCUMENTARIES

As a lifelong jazz buff I was eager to see I Called Him Morgan to learn more about one of my favorite trumpeters, Lee Morgan. His recordings from the 1950s and 60s still sound vibrant and fresh today. I couldn’t have anticipated that Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin would provide such a personal and moving portrait of the musician, who died at age 33. He was able to interview a number of Morgan’s colleagues, but he hit pay dirt when he located several people who knew Morgan’s wife in her final years. One of them found her so compelling he recorded an audio interview with her (with no particular purpose in mind) more than forty years ago. Mind you, this is the same woman who shot Morgan dead in a Manhattan nightclub!

Helen Morgan, who fell in love with Lee, managed his career, and helped him overcome a frightful heroin addiction, winds up narrating much of the film. I Called Him Morgan is full of such surprises and offers an unusually intimate look at its subject’s life and career. (Incidentally, many of the interviews were photographed by Bradford Young, the cinematographer whose career is soaring since working on Selma and Arrival.)

Collin makes especially vivid use of photos taken by Blue Note record producer Francis Wolff during a series of now-classic recording sessions. Their candor and immediacy give you the feeling of being there as Morgan and his cohorts create some of the greatest music of the 20th century. The effect is positively exhilarating.

I Called Him Morgan opens today in Los Angeles at Laemmle’s Monica Film Center in Santa Monica and Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, with other cities to follow. You don’t have to love jazz to be drawn into this remarkable story. For more information, click HERE

 

 

Another fine documentary, SOUND OF REDEMPTION: THE FRANK MORGAN STORY (2015) has recently been released on DVD by Kino Lorber. This poignant film chronicles the life of a child prodigy whose hero was Charlie Parker. Like Parker, he played the alto sax, and like Parker his life was overtaken by heroin. The film is framed by a tribute concert at San Quentin State Prison, where Morgan spent a number of years. The all-star lineup of musicians who play bebop classics make a visible impact on their audience, especially when young Grace Kelly (who was befriended by Morgan) plays a stunning solo rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Bravo to director NC Heikin, the people close to Frank Morgan who opened up to him on camera, and the jazz greats who play in his honor (George Cables, Delfayo Marsalis, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, Ron Carter, and Mark Gross).

For more information:

http://frankmorganstory.com/

https://www.facebook.com/FrankMorganStory

https://www.kinolorber.com/film/soundofredemption

Leonard Maltin is one of the world’s most respected film critics and historians. He is best known for his widely-used reference work Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and its companion volume Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide, now in its third edition, as well as his thirty-year run on television’s Entertainment Tonight. He teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and appears regularly on Reelz Channel and Turner Classic Movies. His books include The 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, The Great Movie Comedians, The Disney Films, The Art of the Cinematographer, Movie Comedy Teams, The Great American Broadcast, and Leonard Maltin’s Movie Encyclopedia. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, is a voting member of the National Film Registry, and was appointed by the Librarian of Congress to sit on the Board of Directors of the National Film Preservation Foundation. He hosted and co-produced the popular Walt Disney Treasures DVD series and has appeared on innumerable television programs and documentaries. He has been the recipient of awards from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Telluride Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and San Diego’s Comic-Con International. Perhaps the pinnacle of his career was his appearance in a now-classic episode of South Park. (Or was it Carmela consulting his Movie Guide on an episode of The Sopranos?) He holds court at leonardmaltin.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook; you can also listen to him on his weekly podcast: Maltin on Movies. — [Artwork by Drew Friedman]

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