Word: morgan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Frank Morgan is 56, and his time has finally rolled around. For a long while there, time looked as if it would roll right over him. He has lived out the sad stereotype of the jazzman's life: near genius, full junkie, part-time thief, full-time con. He spent most of the years between 1954 and 1985 behind bars. Not that he always minded. At San Quentin he was co-leader, with Art Pepper, of the warden's band. There was always a way -- an easy way -- to score whatever he wanted, from alcohol to cocaine. Most...
...jazz chart for the past 15 weeks and is currently perched at No. 5. Lyrical in mood, it recalls John Coltrane's great 1962 Ballads album as it rephrases hardy perennials by Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Coltrane (with an assist on two tracks from trumpeter Wynton Marsalis). Although Morgan was tutored in the dizzying strictures of bebop by Charlie Parker, his recent playing has become less slashing, his tone more glowing, his lines more feelingly supple. The new sound is certainly enticing, and has helped Morgan get some of the attention he dodged for so long. Last week...
Born in Minneapolis to a jazz-guitarist father and a 14-year-old mother, Morgan was playing club dates in Los Angeles when he was still a teenager. He'd back up Billie Holliday or Josephine Baker at night, then go to high school during the day. By 17, he had himself a heroin habit. He received a stern lecture on the evils of using hard drugs from the Yardbird, who undercut his position by promptly sampling Morgan's stash. "Like it or no," Morgan says, "what he was saying was not nearly as loud as what he was doing...
...cafeteria at Chicago's Morgan Park High School was jammed, and tempers were rising. Only a week earlier, the school's new eleven-member, parent-led governing council had voted not to renew principal Walter Pilditch's contract. The move had sparked violent protests among students, parents and teachers, resulting in seven injuries and ten arrests. Now council president Calvin Pearce was gamely trying to get on with other pressing matters...
...many in the crowd would not cooperate. They demanded to know why principal Pilditch, a 21-year veteran, had been fired. When the council refused to discuss the reasons, Cheri Dybus, mother of a Morgan Park junior, rose and stormed out of the room. "They don't know what they're doing!" she said. "It's a political power trip. Pilditch has raised the scores of these children. These people don't represent...