Lee Morgan

The Rajah is a quintet session that Lee Morgan recorded for Blue Note in November 1966 and that the label then shelved, for reasons that have never been explained. The tapes were found in the vaults in 1984 by producer and discographer Michael Cuscuna, and the album finally came out in the mid-1980s. It is a polished, relaxed hard bop date, with a band made of Blue Note regulars.

The session took place on 29 November 1966 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, produced by Alfred Lion and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder. Morgan shares the front line with Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone. Behind them are Cedar Walton on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, all playing at the top of their game.

The programme is unusually varied. A Pilgrim's Funny Farm, by Cal Massey, opens the record and runs past thirteen minutes, leaving ample room for both horns. The title track is Morgan's own, a medium groove that puts his crackling trumpet in the spotlight, while Is That So? is a bright Duke Pearson tune. Davisamba, by Walter Davis Jr., brings a Brazilian lilt. Two pop songs, Gilbert Bécaud's What Now My Love and Once in a Lifetime, are turned into vehicles for the quintet.

Reviewing it for AllMusic, Scott Yanow wrote: "Despite its neglect, this is a fine session that Lee Morgan and hard bop fans will want." The label's own notes single out Is That So? and the title track as the highlights, and describe the whole album as sleek and beautifully paced.

This stereo Tone Poet edition was produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue master tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI. It comes in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket with notes by Ira Gitler.