Live at the Lighthouse [Blue Note]

Personnel: Lee Morgan (trumpet); Bennie Maupin (tenor saxophone, flute, bass clarinet); Harold Mabern (piano); Jymie Merritt (bass); Mickey Roker, Jack DeJohnette (drums).
Reissue producers: Bob Belden, David Weiss.
Recorded live at The Lighthouse, Hermosa Beach, California in 1970.
As Lee himself points out in his on--tape introduction to these three nights of live recording for Blue Note Records, the band had no plans to play anything Lee had already recorded, because, as Morgan mutters, "It just wouldn't make any sense." This sprawling three-CD set does, in the end, include a version of "The Sidewinder," as well as "Speedball," an uptempo blues from Lee's album THE GIGOLO, with Jack DeJohnette guesting. But even these tunes are rendered in a more abstract fashion than the way they were originally recorded, and on the balance of the material here you can feel the effects of the decade loud and clear.
Solos lean towards the exploratory and the cathartic, with the result that no tune clocks in under eleven minutes, and bassist Jymie Merritt's "Absolutions" pushes well past the twenty minute mark. Morgan's generosity as a leader extends beyond providing room to stretch out: with the exception of "The Sidewinder" and "Speedball," all of the material for these three nights was composed by either Merritt, saxophonist Bennie Maupin or pianist Harold Mabern.