Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sixth Sense’ Joins Blue Note’s Tone Poet Series
The 1967 session helped push the popular sound of hard bop into the nascent field of post-bop.
Lee Morgan’s 1967 post bop classic The Sixth Sense is the latest album to join Blue Note’s Tone Poet audiophile reissue series. A high watermark of the jazz trumpeter’s prolific late-1960s output, The Sixth Sense was among the albums that pushed the reigning sound of hard bop into the nascent field of post-bop. The new reissue becomes available for purchase on December 4.
Recorded in 1967 at Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, The Sixth Sense brought Morgan together with Jackie McLean on alto saxophone, Frank Mitchell on tenor saxophone, Cedar Walton on piano, Victor Sproles on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. The six-tracker included four original Morgan compositions, a cover of Walton’s piece “Afreaka,” and a rendition of Cal Massey’s “The Cry of My People” for a closer. A 1968 CD reissue added in three new songs: renditions of Mitchell’s “Extemporaneous,” Mickey Bass’ “Mickey’s Tune,” and a Morgan original, the aptly-titled “Leebop.”
By 1970, Morgan had already begun to explore how his approach to jazz might intersect with or inspire other popular styles of music at the time, from Broadway standards to Burt Bacharach pop compositions to rock-and-roll. “I don’t like labels. If you can play, you can play with everybody,” he told Downbeat Magazine that year. “Look at Coleman Hawkins, Joe Henderson. Whatever you prefer, you’ll find sufficient quantities of talented musicians who prefer the same. But you should never limit your mind.”
Like all Tone Poet vinyl editions, the new version of The Sixth Sense was produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray using original analog master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, and packaged in a deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket. The release caps off a stacked year of additions to the Tone Poet series, including albums from Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Hutcherson, Booker Ervin, and more. It’s not even the first Morgan album to join the collection this year—his 1957 album City Lights, one of his early career releases on Blue Note, joined the reissue series back in February.
