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Jazz Classics

Album Sleeve Notes

Dexter Gordon: Tall Tales on Tenor Sax

Long tall Dexter was indeed a tall man. On stage at Copenhagen’s famed Jazzhus Montmartre, his head would barely miss the artistic low ceiling over the stage, and a single office lamp would give enough light for us to see the changes in his facial expression during his long, long solos, from smile to intense concentration, his light green eyes tightly closed. When he opened them it was like he came back from a long trip and had to re-orientate himself. In all his years in Copenhagen – from 1962 to 1976 - that little stage was his home away from home and the club was synonymous with the name DEX. Gordon was a handsome, sexy and graceful man. The women would swoon when he looked directly at them, maybe through a smoke ring from his cigarette – he smoked two packs a day. He oozed a kind of exotic super charm in then-so-innocent little Denmark.

Born in 1923, Dexter began playing clarinet, but joined Lionel Hampton’s band just a few months after picking up the tenor sax at the age of 17. After that it was Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong and Billy Eckstine. In Eckstine’s band he developed his powerful bebop and ‘invented’ the long tenor battles with Gene Ammons, a trademark he would nourish throughout his entire career with anyone who had the guts to challenge him. Gordon had a special way of wobbling his knees while playing, and he would say, “You have to keep your wobbling in shape if you play the tenor.”

This recording will give you a comprehensive impression of Gordon’s mastery in his artistic trajectory.

The reason for Dexter Gordon’s lusty playing in the three numbers here – the hardest bop, the swingiest Afro-inspired music, the most tender of ballads – is without doubt that his stay in Copenhagen brought out the best and most powerful playing of his whole career. Gordon himself acknowledged this several times publicly in radio and TV interviews. Just recently (2014) DRTV (Danish Public Television) aired four 40-minute programmes dealing specifically with Dexter Gordon and Ben Webster in Copenhagen, with several quotes by a bright and optimistic Gordon about his wellbeing, as well as the known and dreaded picture of a man trying hard to escape his addiction. His ‘crime’ gave him a ton of legal problems with work permits and no access to France or Great Britain for a long while, but a group of jazz intelligentsia – if there is such a label – convinced the Danish Justice Department that Gordon was an important cultural figure in Denmark and thus fixed his permit, etc. As payback, Gordon offered to bring his knowledge of music out to schools and music institutions with small live sessions, teaching in his broken-but-charming slow Danish.

The media was friendly to Gordon - and to all jazz in those days, for that matter. Two years of direct weekly radio transmissions from the Montmartre club was a natural. Dexter was also the main character and soloist in at least seven TV specials and features – very much like the other expatriate, Ben Webster. Dexter knew he was the beloved ‘Lord Mayor of Jazz in Copenhagen’ and the mutual respect with the media resulted in rewards like the session on this record.

Magleaas is an old school in the tradition of what we call ‘højskole’, a special Danish invention from around 1900, a place for people who seek further input or wisdom in artistic, musical, literary or gymnastic pursuits. Once a year in the summer there is – still - a good week for professional or semipro jazz musicians to meet and have mostly American ‘stars’ as teachers. Enter Dexter Gordon and his quintet in August 1967 before an enthusiastic crowd of young musicians-to-be. Bam! It was a bull’s-eye on a bright afternoon, the Danish TV was there and the sound is now on your vinyl. The group came from almost two months at the Montmartre in the unusually hot summer of ‘67. Pictures show Tootie Heath topless behind the drums, and I have solid memories of those nights that never seemed to end. Dexter would play from 9 pm to 3 am if the feeling was there – and it often was. Johnny Griffin had gigs at the Montmartre as well, and he told me once: “Oh God, do I have to climb this mountain again tonight?”, meaning that Dexter would come for Griffin’s last set and destroy him in a tenor battle, with ‘The Blues Up And Down’ as the favoured duelling grounds. Gordon’s towering tremendous solo on the B-side of this album explains why Griff dreaded going against the tallest of all tenor players. Here you have a five-minute exhilarating solo where everybody gets a bite before Dex re-enters for a stunning chase with Heath.

In Montmartre Dexter had what he called “the best rhythm group in Europe”, which included old friend and dope compatriot Kenny Drew, who also chilled out and went clean in ‘Copenheaven’, as he called it. Add to this the now legendary – then almost adolescent (21 years old) – Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (in non-Danish jazz media known has NHOP), plus the eminent drummer, Alex Riel, forever young and still playing with everybody at the Montmartre. But it got even better. Dexter often mentioned that he needed a New York drummer to kick his behind, a different attitude than the European drummers’ very schooled and maybe polite, polished way of playing. Enter Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath, who also settled in Copenhagen for a while and saw to it that everybody had a ball. He prescribed Dexter the right medicine, as one can hear on these tracks. He came here to play again in December 2013 and can be seen in Niels Lan Doky’s documentary ‘Between a Smile and a Tear’, reminiscing with Johnny Griffin about the old Montmartre.

According to NHOP, Kenny Drew was one of the finest - but often underrated – pianists in the world. Listen to his beautiful solo on ‘The Shadow’ and you’ll know what he meant. NHOP himself was right on the spot every time. Dexter Gordon used this ballad often. “It seems like a plain ballad, but it has some challenging changes. And it’s a good song with catchy lyrics,” Dexter explained about this tune by Johnny Mandel, from the film, ‘The Sandpiper’.

My personal friendship with Dexter was not tight; few people came too close for comfort, except, of course, his Danish family. We partied and socialized often, before and after hours. When we talked about music, he had his heroes ready: Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington. Style and elegance meant a lot to Dexter, and now and then he would try his vocal baritone on ‘Hello Baby’ and other Eckstine imitations. It was fun when experienced live, but not for recording, and one is spared Dex’s singing on this session. Perhaps surprisingly, Gordon’s personal guru was Basie’s grand tenor, Herschel Evans, and not Lester Young, as one might think. Evans was a compassionate teacher for Gordon during the formative years in Los Angeles and Dex never forgot him. Still, he named his son Benjie, after Ben Webster.

These selected live recordings bring back Dexter Gordon in full flight, like we want to remember him: the elegant, concentrated tenor, the wobbly knees and the will to express a world of feelings from deep inside.

Henrik Wolsgaard-Iversen,
Jazz writer, radio commentator
Chairman of the Ben Webster Foundation, DK.

Dexter Gordon: tenor saxophone
Kenny Drew: piano
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen: double bass
Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath: drums

Recorded on August 5, 1967, live at Magleaas High School, by Danish TV. 
Producer: Jørgen Nissen

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