I Called Him Morgan Page #3

Here we go.

[applause]

[jazz music playing]

[Larry Ridley]

Oh, he's buggin' here.

Stickin' his tongue out.

"Yes!" [laughs]

Oh, yeah, he's really muggin'

there with the young lady.

Oh, yeah, they doin' their

little Philly two-step.

That's what it was all about,

stayin' neat, get a haircut,

show up on the scene.

That was the whole thing.

We want to impress

a young lady, you know.

Come in like, "What it is?"

I think of the good times

that we had back then.

You know, there was

a lot of good times.

[jazz music playing]

[Wayne] In between,

we have a break, we play

and we have a break,

and I'd go right to the bar and

get a cognac, a double cognac,

sometimes a triple.

And then we would eat.

We all had a plan.

We eat so we could

stay sober enough.

You know, but I was--

I thought I was

out of the Army, I'm still

26 years old, 27.

And alcohol, you sweat it out.

And you're never going to

be staggering or swaying

on the bandstand.

You don't stagger.

It's not cool to stagger.

You're supposed to be strong.

I would drink and have

like a thin veil around me,

that's my space.

My little dream space

and everything.

And we would play.

[jazz music playing]

I'm looking at

the back of his head.

There's a bandage.

It's almost like in my face,

"What's gonna happen to him?"

It's like,

"What you doin', man?

Lee, hey, Lee,

what you doin'?"

[jazz music playing]

I was with him in Chicago.

I was with Donnie Washington

and he was with Art Blakey.

And that's when

I first realized

that he had succumbed

to the drug culture.

And it was most unfortunate

because he was

such a rare talent.

And I was very disappointed,

but then I'd ask him

if there's anything

I could do to help him.

And there was nothing

I could do at that time.

And so next thing I know,

I had been talked

about firing him.

And so next time I know, he and

Bobby Timmons were both--

had left the group.

[Wayne] There was

some concern...

what was coming

next in his life

that we had no control over.

"Lee, why don't you do this,

Lee, why don't you do--"

you know.

We knew that, you know.

Because when he left, we

wasn't going to see him.

You know, like...

I mean, we couldn't

go home with him.

Not all musicians

were experimenting

with drugs and everything.

I never did.

We played at Birdland one time.

It's a Monday night,

and Lee came with no shoes.

Because he had on

some bedroom slippers.

And he was trying to make us

all be okay with it, you know.

Like he was like,

you know,"What's wrong

with you guys, man?

Oh, yeah.

I got my slippers on."

But he had sold his shoes

to get some drugs.

Heroin, if you know

about it,

it leaves you really sick

and in a lot of pain

if you don't have it.

And he said he'd rather

do that than play

the trumpet at the time.

Because he could play the

trumpet well, no problem.

It's the drugs that

he couldn't control.

[Lena] I asked him about--

once he was lying down,

I saw that he had the burn

on the side of his head.

I asked him about that.

He told me readily about that.

He'd gotten high

and kind of OD'ed and fell,

and his head hit the radiator.

And he was out, and

smelled burning flesh.

And the radiator had

burned a big hole.

And then if you notice,

in his pictures after 1965,

he combed his hair forward.

And it was only when his head

was in a certain position,

the hair would fall away

and you could see

the scar, the burn on his head.

[jazz music playing]

Lee's sound was in my head

since I was like maybe 18.

I just really

loved his playing.

When I came to New York,

it was a different time.

And I didn't see Lee Morgan.

He wasn't around.

Until one day, oddly enough,

I was on the subway,

and we had come to

maybe 125th street.

And the subway stopped

and I happened to

look out the window.

And I saw this guy.

He had on a long overcoat

because it was the winter time

and he had his head wrapped

in like... it was like

a scarf or something.

And just as the train was

moving out of the station,

I saw his face.

It was Lee Morgan.

But he looked like

a homeless person.

It was a very, very sad time.

You know,

nobody would hire him.

He really went down

as far as you can go.

And then somehow,

he met Helen.

[high pitched noise]

[Larry Thomas] Well, I noticed

you call him Morgan.

[Helen] Yeah.

[Larry Thomas]

Why do you

call him Morgan?

-[Helen] It's his last name.

-[Larry Thomas] Uh-huh.

[Helen] And

I called him Morgan.

Morgan was one

of the people that

came to my house.

And for some kind of reason,

I don't know,

just sittin' there, like,

my heart went out to him.

I saw this little boy,

you know.

I remember it was cold.

And he had on his jacket.

I said, "You ain't

got no coat?"

And I said, "What are you

doing out in that jacket?"

And I said "Child, this is

zero degrees out there."

I said, "Well, child,

you need your coat."

I said, "Where is your coat?"

He said, "I pawned it."

I said, "Well, c'mon, I'm

gonna go get you a coat.

Because it's too cold."

And he just hung on to me.

He had had his teeth

knocked out.

And he had the brace on,

that saved the teeth,

and that had been years,

and he hadn't even

gotten the brace off.

But I said, "You know, are

you not playin' or nothing?"

I said, "You need to

start back to work."

Because see, they

couldn't depend on him.

They said, "Lee Morgan is gonna

play at so and so place.

He might not be there."

He said, "I know."

I said,"Well,

you can't do that.

[Bennie] I thought

Helen was super.

She was like his confidante.

She was his friend, his lover.

She was older.

And she definitely

was unafraid

to be with a person

who was unstable.

I don't know much

about her background,

but whatever it was,

it gave her a strength.

She had a real

quiet strength about her.

And he really trusted her.

[Helen] We got an apartment.

We moved from downtown.

Morgan went to

the hospital in the Bronx.

That hospital,

they were giving him methadone,

a place you had to go

in there and stay in there.

He turned himself in.

He went in.

[Al] Grand Concourse.

About two blocks

from Yankee Stadium

and the Bronx.

Uh, but it was...

I mean, it was

quite a move up,

so to speak,

from what it was.

[Helen] And when he came out,

that's when I was working,

you know, talking to people.

Mm-hmm.

And when he came out,

they started rehearsing.

Because the people--

everybody wanted to--

would play with him now.

[jazz music playing]

Wasn't no thing about

getting you to work.

[Jymie] I was coming from

rehearsal with Joe Henderson

at Chick Corea's house.

I remember that because

of that bakery of his.

His family had

a bakery up there.

And as I came out

of the bakery, I was

standing on the corner,

I looked down and

it was Lee Morgan.

And he was standing.

So we got into conversation.

And I hadn't seen him

in quite a while.

And considering what

he had gone through,

I was amazed that he was

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