New Attitude Brings Frank Morgan Back to Life

“Life is beautiful, you dig ?”

The phrase is the connecting thread that runs through a conversation with alto saxophonist Frank Morgan, who’ll play tonight with pianist Kenny Barron at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach.

For Morgan, who says he’s “58 going on 19,” things do seem to be going exceptionally well. He has just returned from performances at the Montreal Jazz Festival; he’s been playing concert halls in both Europe and the United States this year. His new Antilles release, “You Must Believe in Spring,” which features pianists Barron, Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris and Sir Roland Hanna, will be out in September.

But there was a time when life for Frank Morgan must have been sheer hell. He’s been a name player in the Los Angeles jazz community since the late ‘40s, but from the mid-’50s through the mid-’80s he spent a lot of his time under the aegis of the State of California, residing in such inhospitable establishments as Chino, Folsom and San Quentin prisons. His crime: heroin addiction.

“I was suicidal. Outside of prison, I was using over $1,000 worth of no-telling-what a day,” Morgan said on the phone from Corrales, N.M., where he lives with his wife, artist Rosalinda Kolb. “That was incredibly stupid. But I was full of fear and doubt.”

Inside prison, he was--being a noted jazz musician--treated royally. “I could get anything I wanted,” he once said. Except out.

On Nov. 8, 1985, all that changed. He left Chino as a prisoner for the final time and embarked on a new life. “Rosalinda met me at the gate with my Reeboks and my horn. The next time I went to a prison was to San Quentin in 1987, with the crew from CBS’ ‘Sunday Morning,’ then again in 1988, with People magazine. That felt great.”

His career really got into gear in the late-’80s, and he’s been able to work consistently since then. In the past year, most of his work has been in duos with such pianists as Barron, Jones and George Cables.

“I started doing duos in L.A. in 1980, and I love them,” Morgan said. “It’s just me and the piano, one on one. You can hear every little nuance that each instrument produces. And the beautiful part is that the people are in the middle; they can hear it all and can feel our desire to have them join us. I want them to join in. I need them. When the people listen closely, then we have the benefit of their energy.”

Asked if he tries to fill in for the absence of a bass and drum, Morgan bristled. “What for ? No, we have our own time, the swing feeling is there, whether up-tempo or slow. You feel the bass and drums in your heart, just as if you were practicing at home alone. I’m not trying to get a quartet sound out of a duo. I’m doing a duo, two people communicating on the deepest level possible, with give and take, just like a conversation.”

Morgan said that Barron--who has been both a leader (his recent trio releases are available on Candid Records) and an accompanist for such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz--provides him with an ideal foil. “He’s so easy to play with. He made the recording seem like a piece of cake. Accompanying is one of his strong suits. In fact, I’d jump over 20 quartet gigs to play one duo gig with Kenny Barron.”

Does Morgan find duos more interesting than quartets? “No,” he replied emphatically. “I’m just saying that I love to do duos. I also love quartets. I’m not saying anything negative. I accentuate the positive. I went for the negative, and look what that got me.”

During this trip to California, Morgan will also perform Sunday at the Hermosa Beach Civic Theater with Bill Holman’s orchestra as part of radio station KLON-FM’s Jazz Composer’s Series. “I’m honored to work with Bill, who I used to know as a jazz tenor player in the early ‘50s, and he was good,” Morgan said. “We’ll be playing charts he wrote for Phil Woods and other alto saxophonists.”

Morgan is still somewhat stunned at the way his life has turned around. “I was standing on the stage at Montreal after my second standing ovation and I thought, ‘I have been running from this most of my life.’ You throw out the best you can, with the greatest humility, and it comes back like you’d never believe. I love it. It’s my new addiction: success.”

Frank Morgan plays tonight at 7:30 at the Hyatt Newporter, 1107 Jamboree Road, Newport Beach. $10. (714) 729-1234.