According to the conventional wisdom, Dexter Gordon's career can be plotted on a timeline that looks something like this:
As conventional wisdoms go, the first is pretty good (one might even call it a reasonably accurate summation of Gordon's career as a leader) while the second is only not too bad. But, as with most conventional wisdoms, there's a lot more to the story than you'll find in either. Which is where the recent 11 disc Dexter Gordon: The Complete Prestige Recordings (Prestige 11PRCD 4442-2) comes into play. It is at once more than it claims to be, and, considered as its own whole, less than it could be.
First of all, the set contains more than just Gordon's "real" Prestige recordings, that is to say, those recorded specifically with intent for release by Prestige. Said "real" recordings consist of: four near-perfect studio albums -- The Tower Of Power!, More Power!, The Panther!, and The Jumpin' Blues -- all produced by Don Schlitten between 1969 and 1970; one extremely spirited album, recorded live in Chicago from 1970 and co-led with Gene Ammons -- The Chase!; two Ozzie Cadena-produced sessions from 1972 that resulted in three albums (Ca'Purange, Generation, and Tangerine); and a 1973 live set from the Montreux Jazz Festival.
The 1969/1970 sessions represent a musically significant, if chronologically narrow, segment of Gordon's recorded legacy, and are somewhat overlooked by many fans, as per the "conventional wisdom" mentioned above. Dexter had moved to Europe in 1962, cleaned up his lifestyle (somewhat), and began devoting much time to practicing, composing, and expanding his harmonic knowledge. Although he was playing regularly in Europe (most notably at Copenhagen’s Montmarte Jazzhus), Gordon was not too terribly interested in recording commercially once his Blue Note contract expired in 1965. But he was interested in growing and evolving as a musician, and that he did marvelously, as numerous (and ongoing) releases of his Montmarte gigs from the mid-60s on both Black Lion and Steeplechase continue to reveal. (The irony that the period of Gordon’s career in which he was least interested in recording may well end up being his best documented is not lost here). For the latter half of the 1960s and the very early 1970s, the Schlitten-produced Prestige albums were the only tangible proof the general American jazz audience had that Dexter Gordon was alive and still kicking, and, even then, they didn’t actually begin appearing in Stateside record shops until the very end of the 1960s. The market for jazz in general -- and bebop-based jazz in particular -- at that time could only be described as "depressed", and these albums didn’t make a big impact upon first release, rave reviews and a few Down Beat Critics Poll awards notwithstanding. (Not for nothing was the phrase “all but forgotten”, or some variant thereof, bandied about when discussing Gordon’s place in the American jazz consciousness prior to his triumphant homecoming in 1976.) Even today, these albums are not as well-known or appreciated as they should be, which is unfortunate, given their uniformly high quality and historical importance as documents of Gordon’s ongoing evolution.
What we get in these best of these sessions is the first obvious inklings of Dexter's 1970s style, where modal (based on scales instead of chord progressions) and quartal (based on intervals of fourths) melodic conceptions, and altered/extended harmonies (i.e. – playing outside a song's basic harmony in a way that is still relevant to it) really came to the fore in his improvising. These changes are more fully realized on the great 1970s Steeplechase studio recordings (made by Gordon after his Prestige contract expired, and worthy of collective appraisal in their own right; luckily there’s a box set available), but these Prestige sides show the beginning of the changing approach. His energy and spirits are always high, as is his level of invention. Of these sessions, only The Panther! finds Gordon at a less than full-bore level of intensity. Yet that album has a mature, mellow, knowledgeable and peaceful quality to it that makes the lower surface intensity more than merely palatable. The others show that he was having no problems making his newer ideas agree with his established personality. And, no matter what methods, old or new, Dexter was beginning to use to do it, he was still projecting the same supremely hip effervescence and almost larger-than-life joy that had been his trademark almost from the very beginning of his career. These sessions form the core of the set, and they are all exquisite.
Sidemen on these sessions include: James Moody -- turning in marvelously thorny solos that show that he, too, was successfully working on expanding his expressive palette (apparently Moody presented some "problems" at the session divided between The Tower Of Power and More Power, "problems" that led to his "dismissal" from a follow-up session; nevertheless, I personally think his playing is nothing short of fantastic in its quality of aggressive diffidence) -- Barry Harris, Buster Williams, and Alan Dawson on the Power! albums; Tommy Flanagan, Larry Ridley and Dawson for The Panther!; and Wynton Kelly (one of his last recording sessions, if not the last), Sam Jones, and Roy Brooks on The Jumpin' Blues. This last album is perhaps my personal favorite of the bunch, it being my first real exposure to the artistry of Dexter Gordon. I first heard this album as a freshman college music student, in 1974, and Dex’s solo on the opening cut, “Evergreenish”, with its hard-driving rhythm and harmonic sophistication -- to say nothing of a near-total lack of the type of double-time figurations that had left my teenage self totally befuddled as to just how the hell it all was done (tenorally-speaking) -- opened up a new musical world for me to think about. Directness of purpose and directness of expression was what I heard, with absolutely no sacrifice of wit, subtlety, virtuosity, or sophistication (musical or personal). Once I began to get a handle on that, the rest fell into place naturally. No doubt, I am not the only tenorist (or musician, period) to have "gotten the message" from Dexter. Although that particular album is a sentimental favorite, all of the Schlitten-produced Gordon Prestige albums display these same qualities in splendid abundance.
Aside from those recordings, all of them made in the studio, special mention must be made of the session with Ammons, The Chase! Simply put, this one is a classic of atmosphere and vibe, an example of two extremely charismatic tenor masters at the top of their games. Here, Ammons and Gordon are working with two (afternoon and evening) local rhythm sections, "local" in this case being Chicago, which means as good as any to be had anywhere, and harder-grooving than most, including many in NYC. More than that, the "leaders" are playing in front of audiences that were more than ready to receive what they were being offered. (By the way, Don Byas also performed, but was not recorded due to contractual issues). I'm told by somebody who was present -- legendary jazz record producer Chuck Nessa, who also offered "professional assistance" -- that the recording of these sets was far from a forgone conclusion in technical terms, that it was almost literally a down-to-the-wire affair in terms of making sure that everything was going to get captured effectively, if it was even going to be captured at all. We should all be thankful that it did. This one is truly "live" in every sense of the word.
The availability of all of these outstanding dates in a single set augmented by 14 previously unreleased performances, all of them worthy and revealing, is reason enough for any serious fan and/or student of the music to add this box to their collection.
Of the remaining “Prestige-specific” Gordon material, the 1972 sessions, although good enough to hold initial interest, find Dex less energized, less focused, and victim to some really bizarre mixing on the part of, one must assume, producer Cadena. Either Fantasy did not have the budget to fix this weirdness, or else it was flat-out unfixable. I bought these albums when originally released, and the mix was distracting even then. Hopes that the problem (and that's how strange it is -- it really is a problem, a serious distraction from the music-making going on) would be fixed for this release have proven, unfortunately, to have been in vain. Four alternates from these sessions have been added to this issue, and they have a considerably more normal sounding mix, which only adds to the frustration. On the bright side, however, the sidemen on these sessions -- Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams, and Billy Higgins on one; Thad Jones, Hank Jones, Stanley Clarke (still on acoustic bass at this stage of his career), and Louis Hayes on the other -- are in fine fettle throughout. Thad in particular plays with enormous sparkle and imagination. This session (originally split between (Ca'Purange and Tangerine); is a very valuable addition to the cornetist's recorded legacy as a bright, inventive, and, at times, shockingly iconoclastic improviser. By the time of this session, his energies had mostly shifted to arranging, as well as fronting the big band he co-led with Mel Lewis. As a result, there are very few recordings made during that period which afford an opportunity to hear him solo at length in a small-group context such as this. The results are simply delightful. Actually, he is the reason I still listen to these particular albums, although brother Hank’s choice of chords in accompaniment might raise the eyebrows of those who think of him as only a "traditionally" minded player.
The 1973 Montreux material is much the same as the 1972 studio dates: Gordon seems a bit tired, wasted, suffering from a case of the "whatevers". He plays well enough, but is not up to his own highest standards. Hampton Hawes is similarly in good, if not great, form. The most interesting aspect of his performance here is that Hawes plays exclusively on electric piano, an instrument that he was more than dabbling with during this time. The rhythm section is rounded out by Bob Cranshaw and the great Kenny Clarke, who turns in a typically rousing performance throughout, and is, on this occasion, the player most worth listening closely to. For one tune, this group is joined by Nat and Cannonball Adderley, Kenneth Nash, and Gene Ammons. Unfortunately, this pairing of Dex and Jug does not produce the same electricity that it did three years earlier.
Also counting as a "real" Prestige date here, although not a Gordon one, is a 1965 guest appearance with Booker Ervin on Ervin’s Setting The Pace, which was also produced by Schlitten. It bears saying that Schlitten's work at Prestige in the mid-to-late 1960s in the service of keeping serious bebop and bebop-related music in the studios and on the shelves -- as well as keeping exclamation points in album titles -- was of consistently high quality, and was as important then as it is in need of reappraisal, examination, and praise today. Its significance as an example of the producer's work aside, Setting The Pace is an incendiary and essential date. Also featuring Jaki Byard, Reggie Workman, and Alan Dawson, this sessions was recorded during a Schlitten-produced tour of Germany that featured Gordon, Ervin, and Sonny Rollins (that tour is where Schlitten and Gordon first established their professional relationship). Quite a collection of talent and, well, character; perhaps as a result, this album is perhaps the most heated of all of Gordon's tenor battles. This is due in no small part to Ervin -- who, it seems, was always heated -- but especially to the rhythm section, which is taking no prisoners and respecting no traditions simply for the sake of being respectful. Boundaries are stretched and grooves are maintained in equally intense measures. This album is one for the ages, one of the most rewarding two-tenor dates ever recorded, and, oddly, also one of the most overlooked.
Whew. That's a lot of music right there. The Ervin date, plus the 1969 / 1970 sessions, are as good as anything to be found under Gordon's name from any period. But there's even more material included in this box, and that’s not automatically for the better. Also presented are items that were released by Prestige as "after the fact" issues, things not recorded for the label that it ended up holding the rights to anyway. These include: one piece recorded at a 1950 Los Angeles jam session with Clark Terry, Sonny Criss, and Gordon's old-time "sparring partner" Wardell Gray (posthumously released on Prestige under Gray's name); Gordon's 1960 "comeback" album for Jazzland (then a subsidiary of Prestige's competitor Riverside, but now under the same Fantasy / OJC umbrella as Prestige); a 1969 live session recorded at (and by) Baltimore's Left Bank Jazz Society; and a 1970 set from Montreux that has Dexter guesting with the Junior Mance Trio, a set that was recorded but not released by Mance's label (Atlantic) and sold by them in 1974 to Prestige, which used it to complete Gordon's contractual obligation to them.
The 1950 cut is not the best documentation of the fire that Gordon and Gray stoked in each other, but it is nonetheless a priceless snapshot of a scene long gone and almost totally unknown to all but the most scholarly jazz fans today. The additional presence of the fleet and fiery Criss as well as a quite young Terry makes it an even more valuable document. If it seems out of place in this set stylistically and sound-wise, that's not to say that it shouldn't be here. This is the style of playing that made Dexter Gordon a jazz star, and, as such, it provides a very nice context for everything else that is to follow.
The Jazzland side, originally released as The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon, is a perfectly fine date. In 1960, Dexter had emerged from a long, dark decade of drug addiction, complete with stints in prison, and was ready to resume playing in earnest. The group he assembled for this Los Angeles session -- trumpeter Martin Banks, trombonist Richard Boone, pianist Dolo Coker, bassist Charles Green, and drummer Larance Marable, members of L.A.'s predominantly African-American hard bop "underground" -- was one with which the tenor saxophonist no doubt felt personally and musically comfortable with, and it shows. Everybody plays with vigor, and the only "drawback" is that none of the players (with the possible exception of Marable) are quite in Dexter's league when it comes to skill and / or personality. (Then again, very few players have been!) This is a fun session which holds up quite well, and although it is justly overshadowed by the Blue Note albums that Gordon was soon to make as he continued his re-ascendancy to true greatness, it nevertheless is quite enjoyable on its own terms.
It's in the Left Bank and Mance sessions that the set begins to get bogged down a bit, and these sets take up the better part of three of the set's eleven discs. In Baltimore, Dexter is teamed with the trio of Bobby Timmons, Victor Gaskin, and Percy Brice. On paper, a decent enough grouping. The problem is that they don't quite gel as a unit. They don't give Gordon the concentrated and concerted group momentum that allows his playing to locked in -- to get rolling and keep rolling as he was so capable of doing when all the elements were in place. Dexter at his best was all about building rhythmic momentum, starting strong and finishing even stronger, enveloping everybody in his presence in a tsunami of swing to which resistance was not only futile, but downright undesirable. (As a side note, it should be mentioned that although Gordon continued to evolve and expand harmonically, the rhythmic aspect of his playing remained pretty much unchanged throughout his career, the only noticeable change being an increasing tendency/ability, as he aged, to play further and further behind the beat –sometimes deliciously so, sometimes perilously so, and sometimes bizarrely so.)
Much has been made over the years of Gordon’s personal and musical charisma, as well as his "movie star"-like aura. Less often noted, but quite relevant, I think, is the fact that he came of age in an era when the Big Bands were to the fore, and Big Bands of all stripes in that day inevitably, as a matter of both professional necessity and artistic choice "show business". The common thread through all this -- personal charisma, movie star aura, and the show business aspect of the Big Bands’ manner of presentation -- is to be found in the end result: a distinctly unified product. It is a product that speaks to a distinctively collective concept of individual style, an esthetic of presentation that as a matter of course ties a ribbon around a package in which everybody’s arrayed and synchronized. Yet, crucially, the ribbon serves as a final touch of elegance, not as a crude means of restraint or oppression. Everybody inside the package remains fully able (and are indeed encouraged) to move gracefully, effortlessly, and instantly between being as wholly anonymous or as highly individualistic as the goal of deriving the maximum impact from any given situation demands. In short, it is a manner of presentation in which every member of the "organization" has an individual role to play in the service of a final collective objective. Everybody executes, executes well, and nobody hesitates in doing so, or displays any reservations about the rightness of doing so.
Gordon’s best recordings have always had this quality. Some think of it as a group playing as a band rather than functioning as a soloist (or soloists) in front of a generic rhythm section. However one perceives of it, the difference between when "it" is there and when it is not is palpable, and frankly, on these Left Bank recordings, it just ain’t there. Bobby Timmons, Victor Gaskin, and Percy Brice are all fine players (and Timmons was one of the most original voices of a slightly earlier period), but there’s no sense of a band playing here. And given Timmons’ near-definitive work as “band pianist” in his work with Art Blakey from a few years earlier, the sense of this being an opportunity lost, if (given that this was a live performance and not a recording date) only for this one moment in time, is all the more acute. There are plenty of good moments by all, to be sure, but there's never a time when everything fires on all cylinders from start to finish. Particularly noticeable as an example of this is "Love For Sale". Dexter's version of a few years earlier (from the Blue Note album Go) became an instant classic. Yet here, there is confusion in the rhythm section from the first beat. Nobody seems sure how to handle the Latin feel on the opening choruses, or even if there should be a Latin feel! Gordon can be heard attempting to give instructions while at the same time trying to continue playing, but finally, he just gives up and blows. That's pretty much what happens on every tune in some form or fashion: Dexter just blows (quite well, too), determined not to get wrapped up in whatever looseness is going on behind him. It's a tribute to his professionalism and his spirit, but it doesn't make for a particularly engaging ongoing listening experience for anybody but the most dedicated (or research-minded) listener.
The set with Junior Mance is even more problematic. Dexter with Mance in, say, 1960, or 1963, would have worked splendidly. But by 1970, Dexter was playing harmonic ideas that Junior wasn't yet considering, and this causes some rather awkward musical problems. Mance is laying down older concepts of harmony in his accompaniment, and Gordon quite often plays things that blatantly clash with them. This is painfully -- almost literally -- evident on "Body and Soul". Dexter had yet to record it in this arrangement, which uses John Coltrane's vamps and chord changes. (He would do so about a month later, on The Panther!) But Coltrane's version was recorded in 1960, and although it was not released until 1964, by 1970, the date of this gig, it had achieved a great deal of exposure, and the arrangement was hardly "unfamiliar" to anybody who had made it a point to keep up with the latest developments in the music. Yet, the arrangement throws the entire Mance trio for a loop, harmonically and rhythmically, from the git-go. Nobody's sure exactly how this thing is supposed to go! They fake their way through it adequately enough until they get to the bridge, where Trane inserted his "Giant Steps"-like chord progressions as a substitution for the tune's original changes. Right then and there, it becomes obvious that the trio doesn't even know where to begin, so they just sort of noodle around while Dexter effortlessly sails through the changes, doing his best to outline them in hopes that somebody would figure out what the deal was. Nobody does.
What this shows, as clearly as it can possibly shown, is that, unlike some of his peers, Dexter Gordon had been paying attention to what the players he had influenced had themselves been discovering. And not just paying casual attention to it either, but learning from it as well, adapting much of it to his own personal ends. Junior Mance, Martin Rivera, and Oliver Jackson, it seems, had not been. That's not a slam on them, since they did what they did just fine, and they probably had no pressing personal needs to go beyond where they already were. But when they came face-to-face with Dexter Gordon, it was obvious that Dexter wanted, probably in fact needed, to do something different than what he, and they, had been doing in the years before. And Gordon, being the powerful force that he was, went right on ahead and did it in spite of the reluctance or inability of his accompanists to keep up. And remember -- this was their gig!
This type of uncomfortable stylistic clashing, as well as other less-than-stellar moments on the Left Bank, 1972, and 1973 dates explain why this set is less than it could be, even though it is also more than it, at face value, claims to be. If a set had been released that contained only the Schlitten-produced material (including the Ervin-led tenor battle) with all the unissued material included, the result would be an uncontested classic, an "essential" part of any collection, and a document of unquestionable historical importance, documenting as it does a key phase in the evolution of one of the music's uncontested masters. People who wonder how the Blue Note Gordon became the Columbia (or Steeplechase) Gordon would have a ready-made answer in one convenient package. Add the 1950 performance and the Jazzland date, and the set is still a no-brainer. You still get the important work, as well as two historically relevant points of comparison.
However, the inclusion of the less-than-great material makes the issue of "essentiality" a little less cut-and-dried. On the one hand, this is as complete a gathering of Fantasy’s assorted Gordon holdings as we could ask for. On the other hand, the lesser material could well divert focus away from the real meat of the set for a casual or new Gordon fan. Between the Left Bank gig, the encounter with Mance, and the 1972 / 1973 material, about a third of this set is material that could best be classified as "for hardcore fans only". Plus, with the material being presented in chronological sequence, listening straight through results in a repeating sequence of highs and (relative) lows that could easily dull the appreciation of just how high the highs really are. Listening in this manner is, of course, optional, and truthfully, it is not recommended, at least not more than once. This variance in musical quality and how it plays out in the grouping of sessions across the set’s 11 discs should not go without at least a perfunctory noting, so here one is.
On the other hand, Dexter Gordon had one of the most infectious spirits in the history of jazz, and once you get infected by it, there is no easy cure should you decide to seek one (an unlikely scenario, to be sure). So I would say that this is a set that every Dexter Gordon fan, serious, casual, experienced, or novice, should own. Eventually. Just be prepared to listen to some parts of it a lot more than others.
Packaging is modest but effective (and attractive in an economically dignified manner). The booklet includes many not commonly seen photographs, as well as a lengthy, well-researched, and historically interesting essay by Ted Panken. Besides the usual reminiscences of fans and contemporaries, there's some interesting quotes from younger tenorists like David Murray and Eric Alexander, who relate the musical and personal specifics of what Dexter Gordon has meant to them as players who are trying to follow in the wake of his legacy. This adds a nice touch, in that it gives the non-musician reader / listener a chance to experience the perspective that some contemporary musicians have on an undisputed "giant", a perspective that may well help enhance their own. This essay is far from superficial, and is definitely a positive asset of the set.
Remastering is by Kirk Felton, and is just dandy, the allowance of the 1972 horrors to stand notwithstanding. I've owned much of this material on LPs for many years, and on each session that I've referenced, Felton’s remastering compares equally or favorably to the original LP issues.
Stated reservations aside, Dexter Gordon: The Complete Prestige Recordings stands as an important documentation of a crucial period in the development of one of jazz' greatest artists, a testament to his indomitably joyous spirit and his refusal to fall victim to self-imposed obsolescence. If you even slightly enjoy the music of Long Tall Dexter, you owe it to yourself to check this material out, either through this comprehensive box set or through individual albums (which, it must be stressed, will not provide you with the alternate material from the best sessions). The best of it is as good as you’d want (and there’s more of it here than has been previously available), and the rest is, well... the rest.
~ Jim Sangrey
Posted by jsngry on April 27, 2005 6:50 AMThat a great, great review Mr Sangrey.
Doing by a man who know the thing from deep inside.
I'll print this piece of yours and keep it in my archive.
Thanks for it has it gives me a new perspective on the man AND his Prestige records that I know Baddly (only heard "Settin' The Pace").
I also just want to acknowledge what a nice review this was to read. Thorough and highly informative. Well done.
Posted by: David Jones at June 4, 2005 11:02 PMI'm looking for freddie the freeloader to dexter gordon in something different is very important for me to have this song.There are many take please if you can help me thank you... I 'm Italian sorry for my English.
Posted by: kriss at November 22, 2005 4:38 AM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................