A youthful Frank Morgan. Source.
In the compelling crime thrillers of Michael Connelly, I’ve already admired LA detective Harry Bosch’s good taste in jazz with my post on Tomasz Stańko.
The music of sax-player Frank Morgan (1933–2007) features in several of Connelly’s novels. I’m reminded to pursue his work as I re-read The burning room (2014).
Morgan was yet another devotee of Charlie Parker—following whose death in 1955, and the release of his own first album (below), he too self-destructed, spending much of the next thirty years in prison; in San Quentin he managed to keep playing in the company of fellow-inmates like Art Pepper. [1] But Morgan thrived again after he was freed in 1985.
Connelly sings Morgan’s praises in a corner of his website, introducing the documentary The sound of redemption (N.C. Heikin, 2015), “from drug addict, conman, and convict to beloved elder statesman of jazz”. Here’s a trailer:
As Connelly recalls,
At the time I was putting together a character for a book I was writing. The character was a detective who was a loner and liked to listen to and draw inspiration from jazz. The character—I would name him Harry Bosch—had a particular affinity for the saxophone. Its mournful sound, like a human crying out in the night, was what he was drawn to. The detective saw the worst of humanity every day on the job. He found solace every night in the sound of the saxophone. […]
It was a perfect set up because Harry Bosch did more than simply listen to the music. He identified with the musicians. I wanted him to listen to musicians who had overcome the odds to make their music because Harry had overcome great odds himself.
Here’s Morgan’s 1955 album:
Bosch’s anthem, its minimalism reminiscent of Blue in green and Naima, is Lullaby, with pianist George Cables:
Georgia on my mind (see under Bernard Lortat-Jacob at 80):
Connelly’s The overlook (2007) opens thus:
The call came in at midnight. Harry Bosch was awake and sitting in his living room in the dark. He liked to think that he was doing this because it allowed him to hear the saxophone better. By masking one the senses he accentuated another.
But deep down he knew the truth. He was waiting.
The call was from Larry Gandle, his supervisor in Homicide Special. It was Bosch’s first call-out in the new job. And it was what he had been waiting for.
“Harry, you up?”
“I’m up.”
“Who’s that you got playing?”
Frank Morgan, live at the Jazz Standard in New York.That’s George Cables you’re hearing now on piano.”
“Sounds like All Blues.”
“You nailed it.”
“Good stuff. I hate to take you away from it.”
Bosch used the remote to turn the music off.
“What’s the call, Lieutenant?”
Here Morgan accompanies readings from the book:
From The Burning room:
On the way back to the PAB he stopped by the Blue Whale to see who was playing and who was coming later in the month, and he was pleasantly surprised to see Grace Kelly on the stage with a four-piece band. Grace was a young saxophonist with a powerful sound. She also sang. Bosch had some of her music on his phone and at times thought she was channelling the late, great Frank Morgan, one of his favourite sax men. But he had never seen her perform live, so he paid the cover, ordered another beer, and sat at the back of the room, his briefcase on the floor between his feet.
He enjoyed the set, particularly the interplay between Grace and her rhythm section. But she closed with a solo and it stabbed deeply into Bosch’s heart. The song was “Somewhere over the rainbow”, and she produced a sound from the horn that no human voice could ever touch. It was plaintive and sad but it came with an undeniable wave of underlying hope. It made Bosch think that there was still a chance for him, that he could still find what he was looking for, no matter how short his time was.
Indeed, here’s the prodigious Kelly, then 15, with Morgan in his final months:
More tracks on this playlist:
[1] The list of jazzers who did time in prison is long: see e.g. here, here. For San Quentin, see here; cf. the Lexington Narcotics Farm, and Ladies and gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!!. Cf. the fieldwork of the Lomaxes and Bruce Jackson in southern prisons.
Stephen Jones: a blog 