SEARCH FOR THE NEW LAND: Featuring Grant's 2-note oscillating nautical motif. Wayne angles in in an obligatorily Coltranesque manner. His opening note has an interval in relation to the tonic that makes him sound like Coltrane. But I still haven't gotten around to ascertaining the intervalic number so sue me. My favorite solo is Herbie's. I love those gothadelic arpeggios.

THE JOKER: It's sorta bland but I still like it. During Herbie's solo, the others do that 6-note intro motif. One after the other with each one in a different key. What a fab gimmick.

MR. KENYATTA: In fast sextuple time and it's my favorite track. Grant really acquitted himself well in this thing.

MORGAN THE PIRATE: Another sextuple-time track. I really enjoy Wayne's fast blur-phrases. He executed them very accurately.

Lee Morgan's "Search for the New Land" is the trumpeter's most searching and enjoyable Blue Note album in my opinion. This session was recorded on February 15, 1964, nearly two months after the date that yielded "The Sidewinder." In many ways, "Search" is a departure from the funky, tight grooves of its predecessor. Sure tracks like "Morgan the Pirate" and "The Joker" are a continuation of the up-tempo feel of "The Sidewinder" and easily blend with that album's style. But the other tracks -- "Mr. Kenyatta," "Melancholee" and of course the title track -- are as progressive and exploratory as any jazz that was made in the watershed year of 1964. Across the board at Blue Note, artists were challenging each other to make more innovative jazz and many of the performers began expanding their bands to accommodate this broadening of the music. On "Search" Lee returns to a sextet line-up for the first time since the late 1950s, but with the addition of Grant Green on guitar, there's no mistaking it from those 50s hard bop sessions. In addition to Green, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Reggie Workman and Billy Higgins all make invaluable contributions, but the guitarist adds an other-worldly spatial quality to the music, particularly on the title track. Of course, in a few months "The Sidewinder" would be released and the title track would become an international hit. Beginning with "The Rumproller" (see my review), every Lee Morgan album would have the seemingly obligatory funky, boogaloo-style lead-off track in the hopes of a follow-up hit. And while those discs are all very enjoyable, Lee would never again "search" quite like he did on "Search for the New Land."

This album is fantastic on several levels, musically groundbreaking, yet firmly in the tradition it will please more avant garde listeners and mainstream fans alike. It`s not as sunny as The Sidewinder (Morgan`s other masterpiece), it`s a different shade of Morgan, shining as a composer of great talent. Special mentions go to the leader`s trumpet playing, as well as Herbie Hancock and the great Billy Higgins. The title track is a tour de force of great finesse, Mr. Kenyatta is a standout track, but the rest of the album is just as enjoyable.

Highly recommended.