I Called Him Morgan

Kasper Collin's 2016 documentary tells the story of the jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan and his wife Helen. Morgan was playing in celebrated bands at eighteen, made important records under his own name in his twenties, and then came apart through heroin addiction. Helen, older than him, took him off the street, cared for him and helped him rebuild his career. In February 1972, during a snowstorm in New York, she shot and killed him in a club. At the centre of the film is a cassette recorded a month before her death, on which she describes her life and that night in her own voice. The documentary does not try to solve the killing; it describes what two people did to each other. Musicians of the period such as Wayne Shorter speak and archive photographs are held at length. Who it's for: viewers who like jazz history and true crime. Who it's not for: anyone who would rather not approach the details of addiction and killing.