The commercial success of The Sidewinder may have caused a few headaches for Alfred Lion searching vainly for a follow-up to keep his astonished distributors happy. But it gave Lee Morgan so much self-confidence, which is evident on most of his Blue Note sessions during the late 1960s and up till February 1972, when his wife shot him dead between sets at Slug's Bar in Harlem. This incredibly exciting ‘live’ date, first issued here in 1993, from July ’68 features a completely unrehearsed pick-up group, with Jordan listed as co-leader, with a storming rhythm section. Hicks, who has seldom sounded so hyper on record (his left hand seems to be flying throughout his solos) and Workman had both been on Lee's Blue Note date that February, released under the title Taru, though later on he tended to use Harold Mabern and Jymie Merritt. The two hornmen had recorded together several times before, including some early VeeJay albums, and they are terrific here. Jordan tends to concentrate on the upper register, at times sounding almost altoish, but Lee is so confident that nothing seems impossible. The material is mostly conventional, with the opening ‘Straight No Chaser’ standing out. Other titles include ‘Like Someone in Love’, ‘Solar’ and Hank Mobley's seldom-heard ‘The Vamp’. Maybe this is the only time Ed Blackwell worked with Morgan, but he's in volcanic form, kicking everyone up the backside! This is what ‘live’ hard bop at his best sounded like. I'd have given anything to have been there!