[5] A retrospective of Billy Harper's career would include the following among its highlights: The saxophonist performed on Gil Evans' 1973 album Svengali,[6] and contributed two of the most-performed tunes in the band's repertoire: "Priestess" and "Thoroughbred".
Released for home streaming and purchase in June 2017, the film documents the music and life of trumpet prodigy Lee Morgan and the woman who saves and restores him after he hit rock bottom due to heroin addiction.
It is a movie that makes the viewer a partner with its Swedish director, in his seven-year search for the evidence that might help explain how the same woman who was Morgan's savior, would become his killer at the instant he was retaking the bandstand for the last set at Slug's Saloon, a jazz club on the Bowery in lower East Manhattan.
Walking right alongside Lee Morgan at this moment — the someone who hears a "bang" that for the next several extended seconds leaves both men — the actual victim and the bandmate — equally stunned and confused — was Billy Harper.
With Louis Armstrong With Horacee Arnold With Art Blakey With Joe Bonner With Stanley Cowell With Charles Earland With Gil Evans With Sonny Fortune With Bobbi Humphrey With The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra With Mark Masters Jazz Orchestra With Grachan Moncur III With Lee Morgan With Max Roach With Woody Shaw With Leon Thomas With Malachi Thompson With Charles Tolliver With McCoy Tyner With Barney McAll With Randy Weston With Piotr Wojtasik