I Called Him Morgan (2016)

I Called Him Morgan: Directed by Kasper Collin. With Lee Morgan, Helen Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Larry Reni Thomas. An exploration of the relationship between jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan and his common-law wife Helen, who was implicated in his murder in 1972.

“If you love and understand real jazz–and especially if you love the long-ago New York City that gave birth to bebop and hard bop–there is nothing out there like this film. It is also fitting that a non-American made it, given that the United States has so turned its back on its greatest artistic creation and the musicians who created it. (Just compare this film with the shameful recent American documentary about Trane–with its pandering casting of Denzel Washington as narrator and utterly stupid and irrelevant choices of people to interview (Bill Clinton? Carlos Santana? Common? Cornell West? John Densmore?). From the late-night Larry Thomas jazz radio program and New York City snowfall and that opens I Called Him Morgan(and hey, whatever happened to that snow? It seems to have disappeared along with the jazz scene),the interviews with jazz musicians of Lee Morganu0026#39;s time (one of whom who objects to the term u0026quot;jazz,u0026quot; aptly preferring u0026quot;black classical musicu0026quot;), and with itu0026#39;s beautifully paced rendering of acompelling American story of love and pain…for someone like me, who lived through all of that, it just could not have been better.”