Jazz Articles about Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon: Dexter Gordon Quartet - Complete Kenny Drew & Carl Perkins Sessions

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 17, 2009

Le due sedute d'incisione del 1955, qui raccolte sotto il titolo Complete Kenny Drew and Carl Perkins Sessions, segnarono il primo passo verso quella rinascita che, nel 1959, avrebbe portato Dexter Gordon a New York, disintossicato e sotto contratto per la Blue Note. Negli anni che vanno dal '52 al '55 il grande tenorista attraversò un periodo buio, senza incisioni, segnato dalla droga e dall'indifferenza del pubblico californiano verso i musicisti estranei al Cool Jazz. Eppure Gordon era sempre in ...

Dexter Gordon: Doin' Allright

by Matt Marshall
August 20, 2009

Dexter Gordon Doin' Allright Blue Note / Music Matters 2009 (1961)

From the first track of this record--in Blue Note's 45rpm double-disc reissue series--tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon certainly seems to be doing just fine. That opener, “I Was Doing All Right," lilts along with a nice 'n' easy, early 1960s treatment of an insistently positive George Gershwin melody. Gordon doesn't rush his solo, but allows it to intensify naturally from the surrounding breeze. He ...

Dexter Gordon: Best Of 3CD

by Chris May
May 15, 2009

As shoddily put together compilations go, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon's three-disc Blue Note collection, Best Of 3CD, scrapes rock bottom. From the asinine title, through the inadequate liner annotation (no recording dates, no original album titles, misspelled musicians' names), to the full page photo of Roland Kirk, in simultaneous saxello, stritch and manzello flight, on the inner gatefold cover, it's a lame effort. And it gets worse. That photo is followed by another double-page photo of Kirk, this one unambiguously ...

Dexter Gordon: Gettin' Around

by Samuel Chell
June 27, 2006

"The Tower of Power," “Long Tall," “LT"--you don't acquire such noms de troubadour by being retiring or inconspicuous in your approach to making music. Indeed, Dexter Gordon is such a forceful presence and commanding storyteller that he can be a heavy load, requiring nothing less than the listener's undivided attention. Gettin' Around, a 2006 release of a 2005 Rudy Van Gelder-remastered 1965 session, reveals a more dulcet and demure Gordon. He softens his sound, holds back on the searing top ...

Dexter Gordon: Gettin' Around

by Paul Ryan
March 22, 2006

It is no secret that Dexter Gordon relocated to Europe for much of the 1960s, but he did return to the US sporadically for recording sessions. This recently reissued album, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's legendary Englewood Cliffs studio, was cut during one of those return visits.

The musicians who join L.T.D. are some of the finest on their respective instruments: vibraphone master Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Barry Harris, bassist Bob Crenshaw and drummer Billy Higgins. Their backing is ...

Dexter Gordon: Gettin' Around

by Chris May
February 14, 2006

An arterial link between Lester Young and the hard bop tenor saxophonists of the late '50s and early '60s, Dexter Gordon's brilliance and significance are today remembered mostly as an afterthought. Partly this is Gordon's own fault: after his prolific vanguard activities of the '40s, the '50s were for him a wasteland of heroin addiction, with few recording sessions or landmark live appearances. He's off the page of most jazz chronicles from the period.

Happily, though, Gordon's most on-fire recordings ...

Dexter Gordon: Bopland

by Ken Franckling
February 20, 2005

Despite its mixed sonic quality, Bopland is a historic three-CD treasure. It contains as much as could be gleaned from surviving acetates of a July 6, 1947 jazz summit featuring some of the West Coast's finest emerging musicians at the time. It was a mere two to three years after Charlie Parker and his collaborators began changing the face of modern jazz, principally in New York. This evening concert at the Elks Club in L.A.--billed as an evening ...