Lee Morgan

CD version. ¡Caramba! is a 1968 quintet date by Lee Morgan, built entirely on five of his own compositions. When he recorded it in May of that year, the trumpeter was two months short of his 30th birthday. By the label's count this was already his 23rd Blue Note recording, and he had cut the first one at 18. The five pieces show a mature player, and a composer able to move between very different moods.

The session took place on 3 May 1968 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with Francis Wolff producing and Rudy Van Gelder recording. Morgan's partner on the front line is Bennie Maupin on tenor saxophone. The rhythm section is Cedar Walton on piano, Reggie Workman on bass and Billy Higgins on drums.

The title track fills most of the first side. It runs past twelve minutes, with the quintet stretching out on a vamp while Morgan, Maupin and Walton take long solos over the buoyant support of Workman and Higgins. Suicide City and Cunning Lee move into intricate post-bop lines. After the bright, cheerful Soulita, the second side ends with Helen's Ritual, an easy mid-tempo swing dedicated to Helen, the woman Morgan lived with.

Blue Note released the album in December 1968. By then Morgan had three years with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers behind him, as well as the crossover hit of The Sidewinder, recorded in 1963. Maupin was still in his band in 1970, when it recorded Live At The Lighthouse. The saxophonist would also go on to play on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi sextet. DownBeat gave ¡Caramba! four stars.

This is the Japanese Ultimate High Quality CD (UHQCD) issued by Universal Music Japan in 2024, catalogue number UCCQ-9679, with remastering credited to Kevin Gray. It comes in a jewel case with an obi strip, with the original sleeve notes by Leonard Feather and Japanese notes by Masamichi Okazaki.