Dexter Gordon
Posted on 01/17/2023 05:40PM
Dexter Gordon
I came across Dexter Gordon via his Blue Note albums. It was when vinyl was still very much a thing in record shops. I used to spend hours in Honest John's & Ray's and sometimes in Mole jazz. Ray's is now a department of Foyles, Honest John's is still going Mole sadly not.
Tonight we will be playing tunes from Go, a Swingin affair & Doin' All right from his Bluenote years. Dexter was born in Los Angeles and spent time in New York and over a decade in Europe mostly in Copenhagen but also in Paris & London.
Dexter Gordon was a melodist only the Tenor Saxophone and one aspect of is style is a tendency to quote other tunes over the changes of the current song. He might quote Mona Lisa on a rhytmn changes or happy birthday, I've even heard him quote Stevie Wonder's isn't she lovely in later years. His lineage is from Lester Young but he fused that with the Be Bop of Charlie Parker. In the same way Haydn influenced Mozart and later was influenced by Mozart, Gordon was an important figure for John Coltrane & Sonny Rollins and eventually took on their developments and incorporated the modal hard bop elements of their playing into his own.
His ballad style is legendary and he would recite the lyrics before playing one. He believed instrumentalists should know the lyrics in order to phase well. He also had a sax salute to thank his audiences by holding his Tenor Sax out in front horizontally in a symbolic
Dexter played the lead role in the French Jazz film Round Midnight and was nominated for an Oscar for that role. His character was loosely based on Lester Young. He also won an Emmy for " the other side of Round Midnight" album and the film sported an excellent cast of jazz players in the house band is. Herbie Hancock stated that the set of one of the Jazz clubs in the film was acoustically one of t he best he had played in.
Tonight you'll hear
- I was doing alright
A Gerhwin tune, I like a Gershwin tune, how about you? Dexter came up with an intro and outro riff and the easy two feel of the head ( main tune) lend itself well to the languid, behind the beat style Dexter exemplified.
- Fried Bananas
The only song tonight not recorded on blue note this is a contrafact of It could happen to you recorded for Prestige. A contrafact is writing a new tune on another songs chord sequence a trick much used by the bebop generation. It allowed the artist to hold the copyright while still being able to improvise on a familiar progression. The most popular being Rhytmn Changes there are myriad new lines on I got rhythm, so much so a whole genre " rhythm and blues" exists,
- Soy Califa ( trans. I am a Californian)
Kicked off by Dexter exclaiming Soy Califa! The first track from the album a swingin' affair is a tune with latin American sections swapping with swing sections and finds Gordon exploring modal jazz ( sticking on one chord for a good amount of time) then releasing into chord change on the bridge. Both GO and a Swingin' Affair were recorded two days apart in Autumn of 1962 with Sonny Clark on piano Butch Warren on Bass and Billy Higgins on drums.
- Mc Splivens
This is a blues that finishes off the album a swingin' affair and although you might think Mc Splivens could have been a colourful character on the Jazz Scene like Mez Merrow, Freddie the Freeloader or Harry the Hipster. I fact it is named after Dexter's Dog.
- The Backbone
This is a tune by Butch Warren from a swingin' affair and begins with the tune stated on that his instrument the bass. Butch was an interesting fellow who dropped out of jazz quite soon after these recordings. He did come out of musical retirement at the end of his life but was another casualty of the drug scene. In fact these sides recorded by Rudy van Gelder at his fairly recently built second studio, were at the end of many things. Dexter moved to Europe for 14 years, Sonny Clark was dead within 18 months & Butch Warren had moved back to DC and admitted himself to hospital diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. They are however albums that burn bright like the last moments of an electric light before it blows and for me they are the Zenith of Dexter's Oeuvre.
- Second Balcony Jump
A lively rhythm changes from Dexter's time with Billy Eckstein's big band. Characterised by a riff, as many 1940s band records were, when few people owned record players and a hooky, danceable & catchy theme helped make a tune memorable.
Blue note records were slightly unusual in that they paid for rehearsals which were often the day before the recording. Dexter's small band charts have an arranged quality and a polished performance it feels like everyone on the recording has thought about their role in the ensemble.
I hope our performance tonight might inspire you to check out the sophisticated giant and his recordings; from his burning two tenor chases with Wardell Grey to his Boudoir Ballads. He has brought constant joy to me over the years with his big warm tone and his capricious quotes. He is one of the legends of jazz and many who know little of the music will know him from the classic moody Herman Leonard image of Dexter smoking,holding his sax, wearing a hip suit and his West coast hat taken at the Royal Roost in 1942.
Simon Whiteside 2023
