A Day in Copenhagen

Description

With his big, warm, rounded sound, sophisticated phrasing and hip quotes, Dexter Gordon was one of the major forces on tenor saxophone from the mid-1940s until his death in 1990. Gordon was cited by Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane as a major influence on their playing. Dexter moved to Europe in the early 1960s, settling in Copenhagen, Denmark. During this period, he generally played and recorded accompanied by a piano trio, so with two horns joining him, this album is special. One of the great trombonists of modern jazz, Slide Hampton is also a renowned composer-arranger. Three of the compositions and all of the album’s arrangements are his. The elegant Jamaican trumpeter Dizzy Reese completes the front line. The rhythm section includes two jazz giants with whom Gordon played at Copenhagen’s famous Club Montmartre, his fellow expatriate American pianist Kenny Drew and Danish bassist N-H Örsted Peterson. Drummer Art Taylor was brought in from Paris to complete the all-star rhythm section. Slide’s minor-key “My Blues” opens the set with a brilliant, upbeat Dex showing that he had been listening to Trane and Rollins as much as they had been to him. Everyone gets a chance to blow on this one. Normally a ballad, “You Don’t Know What Love Is” glides along at a medium clip; Slide states that his intention was to keep the feeling that Billy Holliday and Miles Davis had in their versions. Hampton’s “A New Thing” is actually straight-ahead hard bop, with Dexter shining again up front. On “What’s New,” Slide turns what is normally a ballad into something special; this time a medium-tempo 12/8 with beautiful solos from the three horns. Dexter saves “The Shadow of Your Smile” for himself and the trio, giving the ballad a breathtaking interpretation. The set closes with “A Day In Vienna,” Slide’s richly expressed tribute to the Austrian radio jazz workshop. All Music calls the album “... an excellent sextet session. The other soloists are fine but Gordon easily dominates the set. An outstanding album by one of jazz’s great tenor saxophonists.”