SKF NOTE: Blue Note Records has some exciting news for fans of trumpeter Lee Morgan and drummer Mickey Roker. The Complete Live at the Lighthouse session will be released this July 30. That’s 12 sets of music, including four hours of previously unreleased music. The album track here, The Beehive, is part of the unreleased music.

Mickey Roker, a complete drummer, is one of my favorites. Aside from the many times I’ve listened to him on albums, in the early 1970s I saw Roker with Dizzy Gillespie’s small group at the University of Iowa.

Lee Morgan? If I don’t own every album Lee Morgan recorded, I’m close. Currently, I own the 3-CD edited version of Live at the Lighthouse, and I’m looking forward to listening to the date in its entirety.

Here’s more info from Blue Note Records’ press release:

Blue Note Records has announced a July 30 release date for Lee Morgan The Complete Live at the Lighthouse, an expansive collection that presents for the very first time all 12 sets of music the legendary trumpeter’s quintet with saxophonist Bennie Maupin, pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jymie Merritt, and drummer Mickey Roker recorded during their historic engagement at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California from July 10-12, 1970.

Originally released 50 years ago in 1971 as a 2-LP set, and later expanded to a 3-CD set in 1996, this definitive edition produced by Zev Feldman and David Weiss will be available as an 8-CD set and a limited-edition 12-LP all-analog 180g vinyl set that encompasses 33 performances including more than 4 hours of previously unreleased music that lets the listener relive the experience of being in the club for every exhilarating moment. A previously unreleased version of Mabern’s composition The Beehive from the 2nd set on Saturday, July 11 is available now to stream or download.

The audio was mixed from the original ½” 4-track tapes….