Candy

Recorded on November 18, 1957 and February 2, 1958, “Candy” captures Lee Morgan at a crucial stage in his early career. Still only nineteen years old when the album was completed, the trumpeter had already emerged as one of the most promising young talents in jazz, gaining important experience with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band and alongside some of the leading musicians of the period.
For these sessions, Morgan is joined by Sonny Clark (piano), Doug Watkins (bass) and Art Taylor (drums). The quartet format, with no second horn in the front line, gives his trumpet exceptional freedom and places his warm, expressive sound firmly at the centre of the music. Clark’s elegant piano playing and the supple rhythmic foundation provided by Watkins and Taylor create an ideal framework for Morgan’s melodic invention and assured improvisations.
The programme brings together standards and jazz compositions that reveal different facets of the trumpeter’s developing style. From the elegant title track to the soulful “Since I Fell for You”, the energetic “C.T.A.” and the timeless “All the Way”, Morgan combines technical brilliance with lyricism, blues feeling and a natural sense of swing. Even at this early stage, his playing displays the confidence, imagination and distinctive phrasing that would become hallmarks of his musical voice.
Released in 1958, “Candy” stands as one of the most significant recordings of Lee Morgan’s early years. Intimate in scale yet remarkably assured in execution, it documents a gifted young musician rapidly developing a style of his own and offers a fascinating portrait of one of the artists who would become a defining figure of hard bop.