Lee Morgan

The Sidewinder is the album that turned Lee Morgan from a respected hard bop trumpeter into a best seller. Recorded on 21 December 1963 and released in 1964, it marked his return after personal problems had kept him off the scene in the early 1960s. It became Blue Note's best-selling record. In 2024 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.

Morgan had debuted on Blue Note in 1956, at the age of 18. He wrote all five tunes for this quintet date, with Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, Barry Harris on piano (appearing courtesy of Riverside), Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. Alfred Lion produced, and Rudy Van Gelder recorded the session at his studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

The title track opens the album and runs over ten minutes, a 24-bar theme with a loping, funky beat that became a jazz standard. Totem Pole is nearly as long. The second side holds three shorter pieces, Gary's Notebook, Boy, What a Night and Hocus-Pocus, all Morgan originals like the rest of the album.

An edited version of the title track was issued as a single and reached number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1965. By then the album stood at number 25 on the Billboard album chart. The success had a cost. Blue Note postponed or shelved several of Morgan's next sessions while it waited for another Sidewinder, and albums such as The Rumproller opened with a tune in the same mould. The title track also found a second life in a Chrysler television advertisement.

This Blue Note Essentials edition, number BNE01 in the series, is mastered from high-resolution digital masters and pressed on 140g vinyl, as the label states. The jacket keeps the original cover design by Reid Miles and the liner notes by Leonard Feather.