Frank Morgan
Alto Sax
About
Frank Morgan was a bebop alto saxophonist whose career was defined by extraordinary talent, devastating addiction, and one of jazz's greatest comebacks. Mentored directly by Charlie Parker as a child, he was hailed as "the New Bird" after his 1955 debut album for GNP Records. But heroin addiction — begun at seventeen in emulation of his idol — led to three decades of incarceration, much of it at San Quentin. His remarkable return began in 1985 with Easy Living on Contemporary Records, launching a prolific second act that produced more than twenty albums. He recorded with Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, and George Cables, and won the 1991 DownBeat Critics Poll for Best Alto Saxophonist. Crime novelist Michael Connelly made Morgan's saxophone the musical soul of his Harry Bosch detective series, and Morgan composed music for the audiobook of Connelly's The Overlook.
Trivia
At San Quentin, Morgan and fellow inmate Art Pepper formed a prison jazz band that grew to seventeen musicians, including Hampton Hawes and Leroy Vinnegar. The prison hosted paying visitors at $7.50 a ticket for tours of the facility followed by a steak dinner and a concert. The inmates would color their white prison stripes with charcoal "to make them look like tuxedos." Morgan later called it "the greatest big band I ever played with."
Early Life
Born on December 23, 1933, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was the son of Stanley Morgan, a guitarist with the Ink Spots, and a fourteen-year-old mother. Raised mostly by his grandmother in Milwaukee, he began guitar lessons at three but abandoned the instrument at seven after his father took him to see Charlie Parker perform with the Jay McShann Orchestra. Parker advised the boy to start on clarinet before moving to saxophone, and within two years Morgan was playing alto. At fourteen his grandmother sent him to live with his father in Los Angeles after catching him with marijuana. There he studied at Jefferson High School under Samuel Rodney Browne alongside future stars Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer, and Billy Higgins, and at fifteen was offered a spot in Duke Ellington's orchestra — which his father turned down.
Frank Morgan Solos
1955
Alto Sax solo - Bernie's Tune - 1955
4/4 swing in D minor at 238 BPM
Alto Sax solo - My Old Flame - 1955
4/4 ballad in F major at 63 BPM
Alto Sax solo - I'll Remember April - 1955
4/4 latin in G major at 227 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Neil's Blues - 1955
4/4 swing in F major at 140 BPM
Alto Sax solo - The Champ - 1955
4/4 swing in B♭ major at 279 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Chooch - 1955
4/4 latin in E♭ major at 195 BPM
Alto Sax solo - The Nearness Of You - 1955
4/4 ballad in F major at 60 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Whippet - 1955
4/4 latin in A♭ major at 142 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Milt's Tune - 1955
4/4 swing in B♭ major at 229 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Get Happy - 1955
4/4 swing in F major at 292 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Crescendo Blues - 1955
4/4 swing in B♭ major at 120 BPM
Alto Sax solo - "HUH!" - 1955
4/4 swing in C minor at 120 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Autumn Leaves - 1955
4/4 swing in G minor at 119 BPM
Alto Sax solo - Well, You Needn't - 1955
4/4 swing in F major at 128 BPM
Alto Sax solo - B.T. - 1955
4/4 swing in C minor at 258 BPM