The Sidewinder

The SidewinderThe SidewinderLee Morgan · 1964 (recorded 1963, released 1964) became an unexpected hit. Its boogaloo beat and simple riff crossed over to general audiences, reportedly rescuing Blue Note Records from financial trouble. The front line with Joe HendersonJoe Hendersonジョー・ヘンダーソン was two Art BlakeyArt Blakeyアート・ブレイキー alumni at their peak.

Lee MorganLee Morganリー・モーガン's 1963 album The SidewinderThe SidewinderLee Morgan · 1964 was an unexpected commercial hit — almost the only Blue Note recording to chart. Morgan continued evolving in the years after, until he was shot onstage in 1972 at age 33.

Recorded in December 1963, The SidewinderThe SidewinderLee Morgan · 1964 became Lee MorganLee Morganリー・モーガン's biggest commercial hit on Blue Note. The boogaloo title track climbed to No. 25 on the Billboard pop chart and is often credited with rescuing the label financially.

Joe HendersonJoe Hendersonジョー・ヘンダーソン's tenor is featured throughout Lee MorganLee Morganリー・モーガン's The SidewinderThe SidewinderLee Morgan · 1964 (1963). His cerebral, slightly 'outside' phrasing provided a striking foil to Morgan's straight-ahead blues sensibility.

The Sidewinder (1964) is a Lee Morgan hard-bop date, yet its title track became an unexpected commercial hit on jukeboxes and the charts — a straight-ahead session that boosted Blue Note enough that imitation openers followed for years. Joe Henderson, known as a cerebral tenor, is at the center of it.

Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder (1964) was meant as routine hard bop, but the title track became a surprise hit — a chart single that ended up in a TV ad — and it shored up a struggling Blue Note. Afterward the label kept pressing its players for 'another Sidewinder.'

Billy Higgins anchored Blue Note's hard-bop peak on Herbie Hancock's Takin' Off (1962) and Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder (1964). He's also credited on the 2021 release Deciphering the Message, built from vintage Blue Note tape — two decades after his death in 2001.

Bob Cranshaw's unreleased 1964 Blue Note session bass takes weren't destined to gather dust in a vault. In 2021 they resurfaced, rebuilt into a new record called Deciphering the Message.