LT-989

Dexter Gordon - Clubhouse

Released - 1979

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 27, 1965
Freddie Hubbard, trumpet #1-3,5,6; Dexter Gordon, tenor sax; Barry Harris, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass #1,3-6; Ben Tucker, bass #2; Billy Higgins, drums.

1586 tk.3 Hanky Panky
1587 tk.5 Devilette
1588 tk.7 Clubhouse
1589 tk.14 Jodi
1590 tk.17 I'm A Fool To Want You
1591 tk.22 Lady Iris B

See Also: GXF-3055

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Hanky Panky	D. Gordon	May 27 1965
I'm A Fool To Want You	Wolff-Herron-Sinatra	May 27 1965
Devilette	B. Tucker	May 27 1965
Side Two
Clubhouse	D. Gordon	May 27 1965
Jodi	D. Gordon	May 27 1965
Lady Iris B	D. Gordon	May 27 1965

Liner Notes

When Dexter Gordon came to New York from Copenhagen in 1976 for appearances at Storyville (now Storytowne) and the Vanguard, he was given a hero’s welcome. In 1965 his visit to Manhattan was not as widely celebrated. He had taken up residence in Europe in 1962, finally settling in Copenhagen where he became a fixture at the Club Montmartre and one of Denmark’s favorite adopted sons. The series of albums he had commenced recording for Blue Note in 1961 — beginning with Doin’ Aliright — had put him back into the jazz listeners’ consciousness but club owners weren’t waiting in line to book him nor were customers standing patiently outside clubs in order to be able to catch his next show. Those who come, however, usually filled the club and left fulfilled, for to be present at one of Dexter Gordon’s performances is to be in the presence of a preacher who disseminates messages of warm, love feelings and robust, witty celebrations of life (not expressions of undisciplined emotion). One usually leaves Rev. Gordon’s temple in a state of exaltation.

Dex’s physical appearance — tall, tan, and handsome — has always been imposing. When his musical talent caught up to the edifice in which it was contained, a powerful combination was established.

I didn’t hear him when he was with Lionel Hampton. His only solo outing in that band was as part of a tenor battle with Illinois Jacquet on a never recorded number called “Pork Chops.’ I did see him in his Billy Eckstine and 52nd Street days at the Sunday afternoon jam sessions standard at the time. His charisma was as evident as the wide-brim hats he used to sport, and his magnetism came through on those first Savoy recordings.

I didn’t know him in those days, but when he came from California to record Doin’ Allight and Dexter Calling, I did a feature on him for Down Beat. It was like a reunion with an old friend rather than meeting with someone for the first time. This was not completely unique, for wherever Dex plays, old friends come up to greet him. Some actually know him; others are connected to him by his music. They are the people who grew up on the Savoy and Dial 78s. Now they are also the younger generation who hos heard those sides on the LP reissues of the ‘70s.

Doin’ Allright and Dexter Calling were followed by a string of excellent albums taped in the U.S. (Go! and A Swingin’ Affair) and Paris (Our Man in Paris and One Flight Up). His 1964—65 trip to America produced Gettin’ Around with vibist Bobby Hutcherson. Little did we know that on the day before the Gettin’ Around date, Dex, with Freddie Hubbard and the same rhythm section (Barry Harris, Bob Cranshaw, and Billy Higgins), had done another session. Finding a Dexter Gordon album is like finding gold, even at a time when he is more than well represented on record. Whether it contains material done elsewhere (there are two such here) is not the point. It is the interpretation of that moment — what Dex was into at that particular time — that is important.

Hubbard, one of the significant trumpeters to follow in the wake of Clifford Brown, wasn’t always a star but he always could play. Some purists didn’t core for his CTI period; others, more justifiably, have turned up their noses at his Columbia fusions. Whatever his current persuasion he remains a giant trumpeter. This unearthed outing should accommodate all his fans.

Harris, bearer, protector, and enhancer of the bebop gonfalon, has persevered, enduring much job insecurity during the lean rock years, and triumphed as o recording leader in his own right. True to his musical ideals, he now occupies a position as a young elder statesman whose wise words and knowing notes are listened to by young as well as veteran.

Cranshaw has continued to be one of the most sought after bassists in the highly competitive New York arena. Sharp eyes can pick him out in the band on NBC-TV’s Saturday Night Live, but he’s usually busy Sunday to Friday, too, in a variety of musical situations.

Higgins had already collaborated with Gordon several successful times before this recording. Hig is spirited as he is precise; as sensitive as he is swinging. When the groove is really happening, you can look to the back of the bandstand and see the big smile on Billy’s face. His uplifting beat helps to make everyone else happy, too.

Gordon’s “Hanky Panky” could be subtitled “Chunky Funky” for its solid, bluesy, marching beat. Dex comes out stating a basic idea and then proceeds to elaborate and expand on it as he builds his solo, chorus by chorus. Hubbard also shapes his solo thoughtfully, alternating upward bursts with simpler phrases. There’s on implicit link to Louis Armstrong in his brassy brilliance. Then a relaxed Harris, sitting just behind the beat, seems to contemplate the scenery, commenting on it as it goes past his window at a comfortable pace.

Someone once wrote that Coleman Hawkins turned the saxophone into the “sexophone,” and we’ve often heard Ben Webster’s tone described as a “boudoir sound.” Dex displays his romance-cum-sexuality on “I’m a Fool to Want You.” Macho tenor, yes; but for all to shore in. Freddie, with a hint of “Nature Boy.” plays a tender, yearning solo before Dexter returns. Dig his friendly growl like a big tiger purring.

A winsome introduction by Harris leads into Gordon’s “Clubhouse,” a lithe, skipping Dameronian theme. The way it lays is arranged perfectly for commentary by Higgins and this is fully realized at the piece’s conclusion. “Clubhouse”s harmonic structure allows for the most elegant, sophisticated bebop invention. Dex is at his suavest; Freddie fiddles fleetly; and Barry distills the Bud-Monk essence to its inevitable, logical beauty. Sometimes there are “perfect” solos and Harris’s is just that. After Cranshaw picks one, Higgins gets a chance to swing into full play.

“Devilette,” by bassist Ben Tucker, is a mixture of a “soul” feeling with a modal mood. It first reached record through Gordon in The Montmartre Collection for Black Lion in 1967, but this one was done two years earlier. Cranshaw and Higgins do not solo but they are a strong force throughout as they expertly underpin the principal soloists.

At this writing we don’t know the composer of “Lady Iris B.” (Hubbard perhaps), but it is a saucy blues with a Silver (Horace, that is) twist at its tail. Dex tips his cap to Pres along the way and Freddie is bluessential, as is Barry with Billy “sticking” it to everyone.

Dexter’s beautiful ballad, "Jodi" was first recorded by him in 1960 on The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon album for Jazzland and dedicated to his then wife. Dex has help from Hubbard and Harris (flashing a Monkish run) but he occupies center stage for the most part in this lovely portrait.

The Resurgence, produced by Cannonball Adderley, marked Dex’s first recording in five years. Since that time he has surged and resurged, growing in grandeur with each successive tidal wave. Like the others, this 1965 breaker is just right for ear-surfing.

— IRA GITLER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT CLUBHOUSE

The music in this collection sat in the vaults for more than a decade and a few changes in ownership of the Blue Note catalog before seeing the light of day. Under such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that full details were not available when Ira Gitler wrote the original liner notes.

It has since been established that Ben Tucker not only wrote “Devilette,” but also spelled Bob Cranshaw on this track only, a fact that the sound of the bass on “Devilette” confirms. The piece quickly entered Dexter Gordon’s repertoire — he taped a version when back in Copenhagen 10 weeks after this one, with the Montmartre version that Gitler references dating from 1967. Other musicians also took to “Devilette.” Donald Byrd taped a version, still unissued, for Verve in 1964, and Dave Pike the first released version in October ‘65 on Jazz for the Jet Set, where Bob Cranshaw is the bassist. Another Tucker tune, “Flick of a Trick,” was included among titles recorded the day after Clubhouse, and only surfaced in 1988 with the CD reissue of Gettin’ Around.

The composer of “Lady Iris B.” is also now known to be Rudy Stevenson, the guitarist and flutist (jazz knows no flautists) who wrote frequently for Wynton Kelly and others, and was a longtime accompanist of Nina Simone before success as a musician and contractor of the Broadway musicals Bubbling Brown Sugar and Sophisticated Ladies. Tucker had previously recorded “Iris B.” on drummer Dave Bailey’s Two Feet in the Gutter in 1961.

A better sense of the circumstances surrounding this recording session, and possible factors behind its belated release, emerge from the selected correspondence of Gordon and Blue Note’s Francis Wolff, included in the boxed set Dexter Gordon: The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions.

Gordon left the U.S. for Europe in the summer of 1962, and for the next two years fulfilled his Blue Note contract with projects recorded during trips Wolff made to Paris. In 1965, Gordon made the first brief Stateside visit of many that would precede the triumphant 1976 return tour commonly called his homecoming. Seizing on the saxophonist’s sudden and brief availability, Alfred Lion scheduled three days at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio with the intention of producing two albums. It was an efficient strategy that had worked when Gordon was travelling east to New York from Los Angeles, and one that would be followed on subsequent visits after Gordon had signed with Prestige in 1969.

One of the two May 1965 volumes, Gettin’ Around, appeared as scheduled, but there were problems on both projects to which Gordon admitted once he returned to Europe. “Somehow we got through the dates which I think were O.K.,” he admitted to Wolff in a letter of July 13. “Too bad I wasn’t really in good shape because the albums would have been a bitch.”

Alfred Lion took a less sanguine view of the present music. “[Lion] says that he was very disappointed in [Clubhouse],” Wolff wrote back on December 15. “The rhythm is not together and the whole thing sounds bad. In other words, the session was no good and we do not plan to release it. Therefore, we will just have to make another session to replace this one.”

Gordon expressed his surprise at Lion’s rejection in a subsequent letter (3/20/66), and the saxophonist ultimately approved the release of the music in the late-1970s.

Was the rhythm section the problem. as Wolff noted? Or was he simply being diplomatic? One need not read too much into this and subsequent correspondence to conclude that Gordon was still using narcotics during the May 1965 visit, a situation that led to a possession arrest in Europe a year later. Lion and Wolff may have simply concluded that they could get a superior performance out of a healthier Gordon, but the subsequent Blue Note date they discussed never took place. The saxophonist and the producers differed over whether to record in Europe or to wait until Gordon’s next U.S. visit; then the label was sold and the saxophonist became a former Blue Note artist.

In retrospect, this music lacks the charge of Gordon’s best Blue Notes, and Freddie Hubbard is uncommonly conservative at a moment when he was creating the likes of Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, Bobby Hutcherson’s Components, John Coltrane’s Ascension, and his own The Night of the Cookers; yet the rhythm section sounds together enough, and even an impeded Gordon creates such memorable performances as “I’m a Fool to Want You” and the boisterous "Hanky Panky." Like so much of what Dexter Gordon recorded, Clubhouse is a definite keeper.

—Bob Blumenthal, 2006