Comment on Rise and fall of a a jazz trumpeter in ‘I Called Him Morgan’

Rise and fall of a a jazz trumpeter in ‘I Called Him Morgan’ Kasper Collin’s “I Called Him Morgan” has all the elements of great tragedy: a young charismatic artist throws away a successful career in a downward spiral of substance abuse, is rehabilitated by a caring woman and just as his career is in full reascendance, his life is cut short by the very person who saved him. Additionally, Collin, with the help of archival footage and photographs and the cinematography of Bradford Young (“Selma,” “Arrival”), gives us a unique and invigorating portrait of the New York jazz scene, circa 1956-72. Morgan, though, developed a nasty heroin habit, and his life and career nose-dived. Of the many fellow musicians, relatives and friends Collin tracks down, all agree that Helen literally saved Lee’s life. [...] the master stroke of “I Called Him Morgan” is that Collin structures the film around not the witnesses, but two audio recording interviews of Helen Morgan; one from the early 1970s, shortly before she killed Lee, the other just before her death in 1996 in her native North Carolina, where she retreated after her release from prison. [...] her voice acts as a sort of ethereal narrator, almost a ghost, struggling to make sense of her act, struggling to find a sense of moral redemption.