Dexter Gordon: The Blue Note Years

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The Blue Note Years

In 1960, Gordon became involved in the West Coast version of Jack Gelber’s play The Connection. Gordon composed music for the play, led the musical quartet that played onstage, and had a speaking role in the play itself. Interestingly, the East Coast version had featured music by pianist Freddie Redd, and the album, recently reissued by Blue Note as part of its Connoisseur Series, also features young alto saxophonist Jackie MacLean. By the following year, Gordon had become one of a rapidly growing number of American expatriate jazz artists living and working in Europe. It is often made to sound as though Europe was a land of unlimited opportunity for jazz musicians at this time, a place where their race didn’t matter and jobs were plentiful. This idyllic picture is not quite accurate, however. The truth is that many of the musicians who went to Europe were not particularly well known, and there were those who had serious competition from the best European players, not to mention the protectionism of local musicians’ unions in Euorpean countries. In addition, there were the old temptations of drug and drink, as musicians like Chet Baker and Richard Twardzik discovered during European tours in the 1950s. Gordon’s own bouts of depression and heroin abuse resurfaced during his European time, but he was apparently able to successfully combat them in the somewhat more supportive atmosphere of Copenhagen and Paris.

From 1961 to the middle of the decade, Gordon recorded seven albums worth of material for the Blue Note label: Doin' Allright, Dexter Calling..., Go, A Swingin' Affair, Our Man in Paris, One Flight Up, and Gettin' Around. Most of these sessions were recorded in Paris, with Francis Wolff flying there to supervise the recordings. A few were done in New York during Dexter’s infrequent visits there. These Blue Note sessions are often regarded as Gordon’s very best work, and it’s difficult to argue with that assessment. Gordon was generally able to work with the best American and European musicians available at the time, and his playing is so very relaxed and swinging here that the word effortless seems insufficient to describe his ability to freely express his musical ideas.

Doin’ Alright features Gordon with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianist Horace Parlan, bassist George Tucker, and drummer Al Harewood. It features a number of outstanding Gordon performances on such tracks as the Gershwin brothers’ “I Was Doing All Right,” and such originals as “For Regulars Only” and “Society Red.” Gordon’s ability to play lengthy solos that were neither repetitive nor boring is starting to become apparent here, though nowhere near the lengths seen by 1963’s One Flight Up and also on his 1970s releases for the Prestige label. Dexter Calling was recorded during the same 1961 visit to New York. In the summer of 1962 Gordon played a number of dates in New York City, and utilized the rhythm section of Sonny Clark, Butch Warren, and Billy Higgins. The West Coast connection is very much in evidence, as both Clark and Higgins initially made their mark on the L.A. jazz scene. Warren hailed from D.C. before he migrated to New York City, and though he never recorded as a leader he worked with stellar musicians including Jackie McLean and Joe Henderson. Gordon always considered Go! to be his best recording, and certainly his big, big tenor sound and perfusion of fresh ideas had to please him. In addition, there’s some of everything here: swinging near-bop (“Cheese Cake”, sensitive ballad readings “I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry” and “Where Are You”, a bossa-infused “Love for Sale” and a hard driving “Three O’Clock In the Morning.” Only two days later Gordon recorded A Swingin’ Affair with the same rhythm section. Of particular note on that album is a hot version of “Soy Califa.”

Our Man In Paris was recorded, predictably enough, in Paris, and was originally to have included Kenny Drew and other musicians playing some original Gordon compositions. But when Bud Powell replaced Drew at the piano, the decision was made to record a series of standards. With original bebop drummer Kenny “Klook” Carke on drums and Frenchman Pierre Michelot on bass, Our Man in Paris becomes an essential recording in a career of essential recordings. From the opening “Scrapple from the Apple,” the finest recording of this classic since Bird passed away, it becomes apparent that this session will be one for the ages. Bud Powell, while far from the sound and fury of his best years, plays very lucidly and his solos, while brief, have a real sense of logic about them that belie the idea that he was completely spent by this time. Indeed, a number of sessions recorded by Powell in Europe around this time confirm that, when surrounded by stimulating musicians or environment, Powell was still capable of performing very well. Other standout performances here include Gordon’s very vital reading of “Willow Weep for Me” and a fairly incendiary version of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia.”

The following year saw the recording and release of One Flight Up. This time Gordon is in the company of trumpeter Donald Byrd, pianist Kenny Drew, drummer Art Taylor, and Danish bassist Neils-Henning Orsted Pedersen, a new find at the time. The album was to have had four tracks, but Wolff determined that the recorded performances of the Gordon original “King Neptune” were not up to par, so it was not included. No matter—the eighteen-plus minute version of Byrd’s composition “Tanya” took up a whole side, and lengthy blowing sessions on Drew’s “Coppin’ The Haven” and the standard “Darn That Dream” offered enough to fill out an album. The Rudy Van Gelder Edition of this recording restores the better take of “Neptune’s Dream.” What might have been a lackluster blowing session for lesser artists is a real winner for Gordon. His playing has a new energy and edge here, especially on “Tanya,” a piece that would become a mainstay of Gordon’s live repertoire for some time to come. When Pedersen kicks into a walking rhythm on the song’s bridge with Taylor offering blasts of counter-rhythm, it feels about as good as jazz gets. Byrd is also playing well on this session, and he certainly is another artist whose Blue Note work is considered to be among his very best.

1965’s Gettin’ Around is considered to be something of a second-tier recording among Gordon’s Blue Note work, but considering the level set by Gordon on these earlier recordings, that hardly makes it bad. The rhythm section is from Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder recording (Barry Harris, Billy Higgins, Bob Cranshaw) along with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. The results are smooth and sophisticated—listen to Gordon’s work on “Shiny Stockings.”

>>The Prestige Years & Return to the U.S.