BLP 4083

Dexter Gordon - Dexter Calling

Released - December 1961

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 9, 1961
Dexter Gordon, tenor sax; Kenny Drew, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

tk.8 Modal Mood
tk.13 Clear The Dex
tk.20 Soul Sister
tk.26 Smile
tk.28 Ernie's Tune
tk.32 I Want More
tk.34 The End Of A Love Affair

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Soul Sister	Dexter Gordon	09 May 1961
Modal Mood	Kenny Drew	09 May 1961
I Want More	Dexter Gordon	09 May 1961
Side Two
The End of a Love Affair	Edward Redding	09 May 1961
Clear the Dex	Kenny Drew	09 May 1961
Ernie's Tune	Dexter Gordon	09 May 1961
Smile	Charlie Chaplin	09 May 1961

Liner Notes

THE first time I saw Dexter Gordon, all of twenty years ago, he was a teen-aged member of the new and at that time very exciting Lionel Hampton band. Because the band’s first hit was Flyin’ Home, with Illinošs Jacquet as the focal point, there was no opportunity at that time to gain an adequate musical impression of Dexter. He was merely the other tenor player in the band, about whom the only noteworthy aspects were his height (even today at 6’ 5” he towers above every jazzman except Randy Weston) and his remarkable facial resemblance to the young Joe Louis.

A couple of years later, when the bebop phenomenon had just begun to shake up the whole jazz scene, Dexter reappeared as a member of the wild and wonderful Billy Eckstine band, in which he had taken over Lucky Thompson’s chair. The band’s recordings during that potent period were few in number and atrociously recorded, but those of us who were fortunate enough to hear the Eckstine outfit in person can still think back fondly on the profound impression made by the band and the complete upheaval effected by its soloists, principal among whom were Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Dexter. It was then that followers of the jazz revolution became aware of Dex’s status as well as his stature. He was the first major soloist to transfer the characteristics of the new music (bebop, as it was just then beginning to be called) to the tenor saxophone.

From that point forward, through a four-year era that proved to be formative and definitive in Dexter’s career, Manhattan was his home base. It was in New York that he made his first combo records, with his own group, with Dizzy and with Sir Charles Thompson (featuring Bird); around the same time he was part of the fast-changing small-night-club scene on and off 52nd Street. But at the end of this period. in 1948, Dexter Gordon went back home — to Los Angeles.

Despite his long association with New York music and musicians, Dexter had always regarded Los Angeles as home base. He was born there February 27, 1923, the son of a well known doctor whose patients included Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington. During his high school years he studied harmony, theory, clarinet and alto. Despite his height, he didn’t make a specialty of basketball (“baseball was my bag,” he says), and at 17 quit both school and athletics to become o full-time musician.

During those years Dexter had listened to most of the influential saxophonists; not just Lester Young, though Prez of course was the significant influence, but also Herschel Evans of the Basie band, Dick Wilson with Andy Kirk, and such alto players as Scoops Carry of the Earl Hines orchestra. It was a complete shock to him when he was catapulted into the big time. “I thought Marshall Royal was kidding,” he recalls, “when he called me up to offer me a job with Hamp’s band. I went over to Hamp’s pad, and we blew awhile, and that was it. We went right out on the road, without any rehearsal, cold. I was expecting to be sent home every night.”

Dexter’s orchestral experience — the three years with Hampton, six months with the Louis Armstrong big band of 1944 and 18 months with Eckstine — were invaluable in rounding out his musicianship, but as the big band era began to fade and combos accentuated the trend toward individualism, it became obvious that Dex’s future lay in this more personal context. Though he still works occasionally in big bands, such as the sporadically active Onzy Matthews group in Los Angeles, he has spent most of the past decade as a soloist backed by a rhythm section.

When Alfred Lion signed him to a Blue Note contract in the spring of 1961, he had been off the scene in the Apple for close to 13 years. All those years away from the center of modern jazz could easily hove corroded the style of a less formidable personality, but fortunately in recent years, as Dex points out, there has been an increasing influx of the best modern musicions into the Southern Californian scene, and it has been less difficult for him to find capable musicians to work with. Nevertheless, when Lion decided to fly him to New York for his first two albums, he found an excitement and stimulus that proved invaluable in bringing out the best in him.

The first product of his visit, Doin’ All Right, with Freddie Hubbard and the Horace Parlan rhythm section, was released on Blue Note 4077. The second session was recorded the night before Dex flew-back home.

One member of the rhythm section on this date was an old friend. Kenny Drew, during a three-year residence in California (1953-6), frequently worked as part of Dex’s accompanying team on gigs around Los Angeles.

Of the other two participants, Dexter observes: “I’d never worked with Paul Chambers before, but I’d met him when he was out here with Miles, and of course, what I’d heard of his work made me very happy at the prospect of having him on this date. And Philly Joe, though I hadn’t worked with him since I moved bock to California, did play a gig with me once in Philadelphia, when he subbed for Art Blakey in a group I had. Fats Navarro, Todd Dameron and Nelson Boyd were the others, and Philly at that time was just known as Joe Jones. He was cool that night, but I had no special reaction and no idea he’d become the major influence he is today.”

Soul Sister, the original that launches the first side, is one of the themes Dexter wrote for the score of the Hollywood version of The Connection in which he had an acting, playing and writing role; it is the equivalent of Freddie Redd’s Theme for Sister Salvation, composed for the original East Coast production of the Jack Gelber play and recorded by Redd’s quartet on Blue Note 4027.

The opening and closing passages are played in a contagiously swinging 3/4 (Dexter’s first recorded work in waltz time), but the main blowing body of the performance is in four. Coincidentally, right after making this date, Kenny Drew joined still another company of The Connection for an overseas tour. Dexter, Kenny and Paul, in their solos on this track, all manage to convey the essence of a gospel-tinged soul feel without descending into the bathos that has accompanied some performances along these lines.

Modal Mood, a beautifully conceived original by Kenny, shows several facets of Dexter’s development in recent years. Compare this track (or, for that matter, any track on this LP) with some of his earlier work in the bop days, and you will find an extension of his dynamic range as well as his harmonic and melodic resourcefulness. Particularly impressive is the kicking end to his solo just before Kenny takes over. Kenny’s facility, too, is brilliantly demonstrated here; there’s one sudden run - I’m sure you’ll notice it immediately — that is technically amazing and musically startling.

I Want More, the significantly titled Gordon theme that closes the first side, is the West Coast equivalent of O.D. (overdose), for the scene toward the end of The Connection when Leach keels over. Dexter’s strength, conviction and masterful sense of building are demonstrated. Philly, after supplying an inspiring backing, is heard in fours with Dex, and has the channel to himself, on the last chorus before the theme-reprise.

End of a Love Affair, the only pop song in this set, one for which Dex had developed a liking after hearing several singers use it, has some of the most authoritative blowing of the session by all concerned and is Dexter’s favorite track.

Clear The Dex, a Kenny Drew original, makes impressive use of off-beat pedal-point effects on the dominant. Philly shows how vital his contribution can be at an up tempo such as this; Paul’s solo this time is arco, and Kenny gets into a funky chordal groove.

Ernie’s Tune is the last of the three themes on this LP from Dexter’s Connection score. It parallels Music Forever, in Freddie Redd’s score, in the scene triggered by the psychopathic Ernie’s wild outburst. “The interlude here,” says Dex, “represents Ernie’s Jekyll-and-Hyde personality.” This is one of Dex’s most attractive tunes, with unusually pretty changes.

Smile was remembered by Dexter as a song he had heard Nat Cole sing; he had no idea, until I pointed it out, that the Chaplin who wrote it is the same Charlie Chaplin who has starred in all the movies for which he has composed original scores. Dexter got into such a fine groove in tackling the vehicle that it was decided to let him retain the spotlight all the way instead of stepping aside for other soloists. It’s an electrically energetic performance for which the cooking of this superb rhythm section furnished an ideal complement.

Summing up his feelings about the circumstances preceding this session and the results it produced, Dexter said: “It was beautiful to be back East after so long. Things are not as competitive, not as intense as in California. Besides, it was a gas to work with Kenny again, and to record with Philly and Paul for the first time.

“There were no hassles at all on this date. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

For those who knew Dexter long ago — like the fans who hung up a “Dexter We Love You” sign in the hall where he recently staged a Chicago reunion with his old Eckstine band buddy, Gene Ammons — the arrival of this tenor titan on the Blue Note scene is an event rich in both music and nostalgia. For the newer student, too young to have heard him when bebop was in flower, these sides offer an indispensable introduction to a man who, in more than one sense, is a towering musical figure of our time.

—LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The New Encyclopedia of Jazz)

Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

Paul Chambers performs by courtesy of Vee-Jay Records

Added to this, Dexter Gordon's second Blue Note album, is an original which Dexter titled "Landslide" when it was first issued some twenty years after its recording. He explained the title by saying that something about the piece reminded him of the tenor saxophonist Harold Land. For this CD release, this tune has been added to complete the session.

- MICHAEL CUSCUNA

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT DEXTER CALLING

Alfred Lion wisely chose to document Dexter Gordon in two settings upon his 1961 return to New York, featuring the pioneering modern tenor saxophonist both with a front-line partner and as the sole featured horn. Each setting reflected a significant portion of what to that point had been Gordon's frustratingly sporadic recording career. Many of his sessions as a leader, including his previous The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon (Jazzland, 1960), had included one or two additional voices in the front line. This was a bebop convention Gordon had helped establish. He had also done as much as anyone to popularize the "battle" of two or more like instruments, in both big band and combo settings. (Hear Gordon with Gene Ammons on the Billy Eckstine Orchestra's "Blowing the Blues Away" for the former, and most memorably with Wardell Gray on "The Chase" for the latter.) Quartet performances were also to be found in Gordon's discography, although not in the dominant proportion they would assume during his European and "homecoming" years that stretched from the mid-1960s to the early '80s. Gordon's first Savoy date and parts of his two Dial sessions in the '40s were quartet efforts, as were his 1955 LPs on Bethlehem and Dooto.

In any event, an April 26, 1961 letter from Lion to Gordon (reproduced in the boxed set Dexter Gordon: The Complete Blue Note Recordings) expresses the producer's desire to create two distinct sessions when the saxophonist returned east the following week. "The first one I have planned for... May 6 with Horace Parlan ... George Tucker ... and Al Harewood ... The second session [on] May 9 should consist of another rhythm section. Let's see who will be available when you come in. I have Kenny Drew in mind, and maybe a trumpet, Freddie Hubbard, if he's in town." As it turned out, Hubbard was heard on the first date, Doin' Allright, and the present quartet effort was cut three days later.

This album's rhythm section turned out to be a most compatible trio with a significant recording history. Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones had first teamed with John Coltrane, on Chambers's 1956 session for Jazz West, toward the end of Drew's years in California, then reunited later that year in New York for a Drew trio title on Riverside. Their Blue Note efforts began in the following year, on John Coltrane's classic Blue Train, and also included Kenny Dorham's superb Whistle Stop from earlier in 1961. The would become Gordon's frequent accompanist once both settled in Europe, had already recorded with the saxophonist on the previously referenced Bethlehem album Daddy Plays the Horn.

There is a wonderful balance in the program, which is divided Gordon and Drew and two standards. The harmonic variety of the pianist's contributions allow Gordon to display his skills on the classic-modern contours of "Clear the Dex" and the more contemporary scale-based structure of "Modal Mood," with the latter performance serving as evidence that the man who had influenced Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane was keeping up with his disciples's doings. Gordon's three compositions from the original LP were taken from his score for the Los Angeles production of Jack Gelber's The Connection. Of particular note are "Ernie's Tune," a beautiful ballad line, and "Soul Sister," which preaches with a sly humor to the soul congregation then so dominant on the jazz scene. The bonus track "Landslide," named by composer Gordon for its Harold Land-like line and not part of his Connection sccre. first appeared on a 1979 LP of the same name that collected various unissued Gordon tracks.

"The End of a Love Affair" and "Smile" find Gordon doing me of the things he did best — swinging unlikely and potentially saccharine material to death. He had been drawn to each song via vocal renditions (perhaps Sinatra's on "Love Affair?") and one can imagine the "Long Tall One" reciting a stanza or two in deep, seductive tones (if ever a voice could be called the audio equivalent of bedroom eyes, it was Gordon's) before engaging in the saxophonic love-making that characterizes the work throughout this memorable album.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2003