Frank Morgan’s discography opens in 1953 with a Prestige date for Teddy Charles. Two years later, hailed as the new Charlie Parker shortly after the great saxophonist’s death, he released his first own-name album. And then silence. For the next 30 years, the fluent, bright-toned alto-saxophonist was in and out of prison on drug-related offences and didn’t begin recording again in earnest until the mid-1980s. Morgan grew up surrounded by the energy and drive of West Coast modern jazz. In his youth his full sound, fluency and hip-phrasing matched the likes of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Grey. They remain buoyant on the bustling modern jazz classics that open this empathetic duet recording from the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival. George Cables, a modern jazz master, comps sensitively behind Morgan’s inventive lead and takes full advantage of the space on offer when he solos. ‘Now’s the Time’, the first of three Parker tunes, burns after a slightly fragile start, ‘All the Things You Are’ opens out of tempo before locking in, while ‘A Night in Tunisia’ romps along with Cables pulling out all the stops. But the bebop era was long gone when this album was recorded, and the album ends with darker-toned originals that give the album emotional depth. Morgan’s wistful ‘Blues for Rosalinda’ opens with a quote from ‘Parker’s Mood’, but two Cable originals move away from bebop. Here, Morgan is pensive, the rush less pronounced and the music tinged with a sense of loss. The album ends with a bittersweet reading of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Nefertiti’ segued into the brash bebop of ‘Billie’s Bounce’. Cables is superb, and though Morgan never scaled the heights of jazz, this album hints at what might have been.