The Sidewinder

Recorded on December 21, 1963 at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio, The Sidewinder was cut as a fairly routine Blue Note date built entirely from five new Lee Morgan originals, with the loping title track added almost as an afterthought to round out the program. Morgan, a prodigy who had joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band as a teenager and later anchored Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, was rebuilding his career after a period of personal decline when this session became his unexpected comeback vehicle. Joining him were tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, newly signed to Blue Note himself, pianist Barry Harris on loan from Riverside, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Billy Higgins, who together lock into a loose, blues-drenched boogaloo groove that leaves wide-open space for extended solos over simple harmonic vamps. The title track's easy backbeat and earworm bassline caught on unexpectedly with radio and jukebox audiences, turning what Blue Note had pressed in only a few thousand copies into the label's best-selling record and, according to producer Michael Cuscuna's account, a financial lifeline for the company. Its crossover success also proved influential and controversial in equal measure, spawning a wave of similarly groove-based "boogaloo" jazz-funk sides across the mid-1960s hard bop catalog and drawing some critical grumbling that commercial appeal was overtaking artistic ambition. Decades on, The Sidewinder is regarded as a cornerstone of the hard bop/soul-jazz idiom and a high point in Morgan's celebrated run of Blue Note leader dates, prized by critics and listeners alike for its irresistible groove and the quality of the blowing from Morgan and Henderson.