Billboard : 12/01/1958
Three stars

Lee Morgan‘s growth as a top-flight modern jazz trumpeter is indicated on this new release on which he plays both up-tempo tunes and ballads with equal feeling and fluidity. He is backed by a swinging rhythm section consisting of S. Clark on piano, D. Watkins on bass and A. Taylor on drums. The tunes include favorites such as Candy, [I}All The Way[/I], and Who Do You Love, I Hope, and Morgan handles them to good results. Set should appeal to modern jazz buffs.

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Cashbox : 11/29/1958

This is worthy addition to the young (20) trumpeter’s growing disk catalogue. Morgan swings with fine, aggressive bursts and, in two instances, appealingly cuddles ballad lines. Backing on the six sides includes Sonny Clark (piano), Art Taylor (drums) and Doug Watkins (bass). Excellent front showing by Morgan.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 12/21/1958

Morgan is not yet a great trumpeter, though perhaps a great one for his age. (He has not yet reached 21.) There are evidences of greatness here as well as technical flaws (particularly, tendency to unsteadiness of breath pressure.) The best moments are in some of the Sonny Clark solos.

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Down Beat : 03/05/1959
Dom Cerulli : 4 stars

Morgan is certainly coming along as a good jazz trumpeter. This collection of tunes, somewhat unusual for a quartet date, is far from “just another blowing session.” It is a handsome showcase for Lee’s talents.

There are some nods to Diz and Clifford Brown in his playing, but there’s also a great deal of his own. He generally manages to steer clear of clichés and the more obvious patterns of improvisation.

The choice of material leans heavily to medium and ballad tempo, and Morgan handles those somewhat tricky paces very well. He makes of the virtual rock ‘n roll tune, Since I Fell, a piece of singing trumpet work. Candy is given a lighter, but equally sensitive treatment. Such Hit Parade material as All The Way and Personality become good jazz vehicles when brightly played. On this set there is what amounts to production, because these tracks don’t sound like quartet sides. They have much more to them.

Lee is still emerging, and he is continuing to develop with each LP issued, as well as with each personal appearance I’ve caught.

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Liner Notes by Robert Levin

The constantly developing, increasingly potent talent that is Lee Morgan‘s, encounters a difficult-challenging problem in this album. The problem of being the only horn and of sustaining a consistent interest-holding groove throughout an entire LP. That he accomplishes this is a credit not only to the sympathetic, elastically-forceful rhythm section of Sonny Clark, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor, but, more important, to this own inventiveness, wit, innate capacity to swing and effective range and sense of dynamics. As his latest effort this is, logically, Morgan’s best because as he is chronologically evolving out of adolescence (he is twenty years old at this writing) so is his musical conception becoming more mature. That he still has much more living to do – more life and playing experience to absorb, is true, but he has reached a point, which this album indicates, that stands on its own, as well as suggesting the even higher level of achievement he will undoubtedly attain.

I think the most important thing this album illustrates is the beginning of an assimilation, by Morgan, of the many influences he has been exposed to. It would seem that he is emerging from the period of unassimilated eclecticism, which most young aspirants in any vocation naturally pass through, and is developing a personal direction – his own style, from what he is coming to understand, rather than simply accept, and what his own perspectives are infusing. Morgan, born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1938, was attending “workshop” sessions at Music City by the time he was in his middle teens, meeting and sometimes playing with, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown and Miles Davis and it is these three men who have made the most obvious impression on him. His abundant technical resources place him (in that respect) in a class with Gillespie and Brown and the basics of his approach are, primarily, related to them. But Morgan, though his lines are generally multi-noted and projected within a highly flexible vertical range, often phrases in the manner of Davis and occasionally modulates his sonority to a level that is strikingly similar to that of Davis. In a sense what he is doing, I think, is indicating that possibility of synthesizing the often contradictory trumpet concepts of which he has been informed by incorporating the lyrical, introspective characteristics of the Davis approach with the virtuoso, outwardly-heated characteristics of the “school” which Gillespie has animated.

This album, comprised, in part, of such improbably tunes as Candy, Who Do You Love I Hope, All The Way and Personality afford Morgan fresh material with which to work and he handles it with a good deal of warmth and humor. I think Candy, Hope and Personality best exemplify these qualities. He is wittily engaging on these numbers – approaching the lines with the relaxed, easy-“cute” manner that they call for and also delivering particularly effective solo choruses on the changes that are openly intense and vigorous, but not out of context. All The Way and Since I Fell For You showcase his more lyrical capacities. On these he exhibits his growing sense of restraint and control and his solos, significantly, maintain a close relationship with the melody. Jimmy Heath’s CTA (also recorded for this label by Miles Davis – BLP 1501) is a blowing vehicle on which Lee is particularly vociferous.

Throughout all this, Clark, Watkins and Taylor, as mentioned before, offer considerably agile assistance.

Clark, was born in Herminie, PA on July 21, 1931. He was studying the piano by the time he was four and, while still in high school, played around the Pittsburgh area with teenage dance bands. In 1951 he migrated west with an older brother and worked with Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Art Pepper, etc. before embarking on an extensive two and a half year tour of the United States and Europe with Buddy DeFranco in 1954. Following the DeFranco gig he played with the Lighthouse All-Stars for a while, finally returning east with Dinah Washington in April of 1957. In New York he has worked with J.R. Monterose, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Mingus, his own trio, etc., and has been the object of a great deal of faith on the part of Blue Note’s Alfred Lion who has employed him on a welter of recent dates. Clark is a perfect example of “today’s” pianist in the sense that his style contains, in varying degrees, elements of the approaches of Bud Powell, Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk – three of the contemporary-modern piano’s most influential progenitors.

Watkins was born in Detroit, MI on March 3, 1934. He attended Cass Technical High School along with Donald Byrd and Paul Chambers and worked with various local combos until he left Detroit with James Moody in 1953. After Moody he traveled with another Detroiter, pianist Barry Harris, before coming to and settling in New York in late summer of 1954. his first New York gigs were with Art Blakey‘s “Jazz Messengers” which also included, at that time, Horace Silver, Kenny Dorham and Hank Mobley. More recently he has spent much of his time in the recording studio and in freelance nigh club work. A talented young bassist with a strong rhythmic sense, Watkins is also a consistently stimulating soloist.

Art Taylor, born in New York City on April 6, 19219, studied privately with Chick Morrison before playing with Coleman Hawkins, Buddy DeFranco, Art Farmer, Gigi Gryce and George Wallington, among others in the early and middle fifties. The expatriation of Kenny Clarke several years ago, provided Taylor with much studio and club work which he might not otherwise have received and he has proved worthy of his resultant ubiquitous exposure by developing into a steady “group” drummer with certain characteristics of Max Roach and Art Blakey.

Again I must say that in my opinion this is the finest album that Lee Morgan has recorded. All the significant elements of his conception at this point have been thrown into relief here and the quartet context provides the space for an extended view of these elements.