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Dexter Gordon: Wardell Gray
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Gordon then alternated between the East and West coasts, performing with Tadd Dameron and joining fellow tenor player Wardell Gray for a much celebrated series of "saxophone duels" between the years 1947 and 1952. Most of his activities throughout the remainder of the 1950s were curtailed by his problems with drug addiction. In 1960, with his drug problems resolved, Gordon served as actor, musician, and composer in the West Coast production of Jack Gebler’s play The Connection. After this, Gordon began recording and performing principally as a leader and moved back to New York in 1962.
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In 1945 Gordon located in New York and became a fixture along 52nd Street whose numerous clubs were alive with the music of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker and Gillespie. He played there with "Bird" and with his own combos, recorded separately with Diz and Bird as well as cutting a series of 78s for Savoy as a leader. In the summer of 1946 he returned to California and before he came back to New York in late 1947 he played two months in Honolulu with Cee Pee Johnson. "The Chase", a Los Angeles tenor battle with Wardell Gray made a lively dent in the jazz record market. After working and recording with Tadd Dameron's band in New York he once again went home to California in 1949 where he and Gray often teamed for club and concert jam session-type performances.
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Gordon returned to L.A. (his birthplace) in the summer of 1946, carrying a boatload of experience and a heroin habit. He began to play in after hours and weekly jam sessions, and soon encountered one of the West Coast’s leading tenor players, Wardell Gray. The two would trade choruses in after hours sessions, and eventually began recording together, with “The Chase” becoming one of their best-known sessions. “Wardell was a very good saxophonist who knew his instrument very well,” Gordon once said. “His playing was very fluid, very clean.
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In 1947, Dexter recorded his historic sides for Dial Records, including “The Chase” with tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray. The two tenor “duels” became very popular at this time and Dexter commented that despite the differences in style, it was sometimes hard for him to tell where one left off and the other began. This recording was to become the biggest seller for Dial and further established Dexter as a leader and a recording artist.
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Wardell Gray