The Rumproller
“The Rumproller” Lee Morgan Joe Henderson Ronnie Matthews Victor Sproles and Billy Higgins Blue Note 4199 (1965) Reid Miles cover design. Rudy Van Gelder produced. Photo by Blue Note founder Francis Wolff. Liner Notes by Leonard Feather. Listen up: “The Rumproller” “Desert Moonlight”
Lee Morgan had two albums in the can when “The Sidewinder” became the surprise hit of 1964, making the Top 100 pop album charts. Blue Note brought Lee back into the studio for a follow-up album with Joe Henderson and Billy Higgins reprising their roles. The kick-off funk tune “The Rumproller” was written by Andrew Hill and proved a worthy successor to “The Sidewinder”. But Lee’s beautiful “Desert Moonlight”, in time, became regarded as this album’s classic performance. The ballad “The Lady” offers a rare appearance by Lee with muted trumpet. (True Blue)
(66 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)
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March 16th, 2009 at 8:55 am
wow, love that krazy stretched-out psychedelic lettering!! That kinda thing is way too easy these days with computers/Photoshop etc — it makes me wonder how they did it back then — if it was all done just by hand, or maybe done photographically somehow, or what. It’s really great, however they did it!
March 16th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Thanks a lot for posting this beautiful cover plus the two outstanding tracks with one of my favorite trumpeters.
Bruno
March 19th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Roll ’em easy, Lee!
April 6th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
yeah..this lettering is awesome! Just like a previous comment..kinda easy on a computer vector package, but even to have the balance and finess is the key here, on top of the smooth distortion. I have not come across any lessons that explain this by hand, I have done many distorted letters byhand, and I have used grid and free hand technics. I can see the idea of the photographic /projection technique..that would probably be the most efficient method in a production environment…the design of those blue notes are copied to this very day..but never done as well.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:54 am
One of Lee’s weaker albums in my opinion, but still a great Reid Miles cover. My guess is the lettering was done with a copy machine, or back then a photo stat machine.