Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Part jazz history, part true-crime tale, Kasper Collin’s new documentary employs extensive archival footage and new interviews to tell the tragic story of the magnificently talented trumpeter Lee Morgan and his common-law wife Helen, who murdered him in a New York bar in 1972.
I Called Him Morgan is a genuinely distinctive documentary that weaves jazz history with true-crime intimacy. The film's central structural coup — a long-buried audio recording of Helen Morgan telling her story — gives it a one-of-a-kind emotional spine that sets it apart from standard music documentaries. The plot, built around the tragic arc of both Lee and Helen, is compellingly layered and avoids hagiography. Archival footage and interview subjects are well-curated but the visual presentation, while competent, doesn't rise to exceptional cinematography. The ending, shaped by the inevitability of the real events, is affecting but somewhat constrained by the documentary form. Novelty is high because few music documentaries achieve this dual-portrait intimacy with such a distinctive structural device.