Biography
23 December 1933, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, d. 14 December 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. The west coast bebop altoist Frank Morgan’s career was obscured for over 30 years by prison sentences for narcotics offences and it was only in recent times that his talents and imagination had been more widely displayed or discussed. Morgan began playing guitar under the tuition of his guitarist father, Stanley Morgan of the Ink Spots, and then, after moving to Los Angeles in 1947, learned alto saxophone at Los Angeles’ Jefferson High from the same teacher who taught Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray and Don Cherry. He began on saxophone as a Charlie Parker admirer, then grew closer to the interpretation of his west coast contemporary, Art Pepper, whom he resembled in his sharply accented sounds, fragmented figures and blurted, episodic delivery. Morgan once told the American critic Francis Davis, ‘for me, prowess isn’t as important...
Read the Full Biography of Frank Morgan Quartet
|
OLDIES.com on
|
