Our Man Higgins

Jackie McLean (alto sax), Hank Mobley (tenor sax), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Larry Ridley (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). From the album Cornbread (1967).

After splitting up with Horace Silver in 1956, Art Blakey tried several possibilities, but in the end he realized that his greatest successes came from the musicians around him and with whom he had more confidence. For example, Bobby Timmon composed the title track for the 1958 album Moanin’ that stunned listeners, as well as “Blues March”. And the same thing happened with “Along Came Betty” by saxophonist Benny Golson. Also in this group was Lee Morgan, a passionate and skillful improviser that obtained the most emotional energy out of blues and minor key themes.

Born in Philadelphia, Morgan had learned in the taverns where workers gathered and in clubs before joining the Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. Although his main influence was Clifford Brown, he developed a personal style that mixed short and incisive phrases with longer and fluctuating ones adding repeated figures. In 1961 he left Blakey and recorded extensively as a leader for Blue Note Records. He had a great success with a funk theme titled “The Sidewinder” and spent the rest of his career trying to repeat the formula, but he didn’t succeed.

This is a bebop style theme that the group exposes with precision and where Higgins shares the limelight with McLean and Mobley. Soon McLean enters with a cerebral, but imaginative solo, but then he introduce a more bluesy flavor. Morgan then comes in playing with intensity and enthusiasm including also elements of the blues. Mobley follows him and his speech is pure and simple blues, fully respecting it’s harmonies. Then Hancock arrives with a captivating and pleasant melodic line with an extraordinary technique that makes the listener enjoy. Next it’s Higgins’ turn playing complicated rhythmic figures until the group re-exposes the theme.