LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Dexter Gordon: New York
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Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923–April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, and an Academy Award-nominated actor. He is considered one of the first bebop tenor players. A famous photograph by Herman Leonard of Gordon smoking a cigarette during a set at the Royal Roost in New York City in 1948 is one of the more iconic images in the history of jazz.
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Dexter Gordon is an important figure in the history of what is called America's native art form. He played a concerto for saxophone with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan. Like others of his alienated generation he was once addicted to heroin, and in 1967 in Paris he had been arrested for it.
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In the late 1970s tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon returned to the United States after a fourteen-year-long sojourn in Europe; a series of wildly successful gigs and a new contract with Columbia Records persuaded him to stay. We’ll hear music from the live double-album Homecoming, as well as tracks from a recent reissue of the record Manhattan Symphonie, the album Sophisticated Giant, and the 3-CD anthology of Gordon’s performances at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco.
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Dexter Gordon said that the best thing that ever happened to him was getting busted for possession of heroin - he spent three years in San Quentin, where he dried out and played saxophone every day. He hung his new compositions on the washing line along with the wet prison uniforms and played his score sitting on an upturned zinc bucket. In those three years he perfected his style and rarely felt unlucky.
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Gordon never blew stronger than in these years after he got out of prison (second skag bust). The notes come tumbling out of his horn like warm doughnuts, beginning with an uptempo version of “A Night in Tunisia” where Gordon feels as if he’s saying, “Well, this is a little too quick, ain’t it? But I’m not gonna force it, just skip a few notes when they begin to crowd.” His sound by this time contains some Coltrane -- they influenced each other back and forth, and Gordon has adopted that way of overblowing the first note of a phrase and laying out metallic, affectless long tones. But Gordon is far more sensual than Trane; just listen to the sad familiarity of “What’s New.” Women musta heard that and wanted his fingers all over them.
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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 ... 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.
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