It is the Dexter Gordon centennial today. Nice appreciation by Nate Chinen:
Every Dexter Gordon record is great, and every video of Gordon in performance is magical.
Some say Gordon was the first bebop tenor saxophonist. One of the key ensembles moving from swing to bop was the Billy Eckstine big band. On “Blowing the Blues Away” the 1944 group has Gordon, Gene Ammons, Dizzy Gillespie (who plays a roaring rip into the finale), Tommy Potter, and Art Blakey. John Malachi is on piano (a name I mainly know from Geri Allen’s gorgeous tribute, “For John Malachi”).
On one hand, this is a band that is playing for dancing. It’s the Count Basie model, and the vocabulary of both tenor saxophonists comes straight from Basie’s star soloist Lester Young. It’s not R&B, not yet, but you can almost reach out and touch R&B here. Eckstine’s blues vocal could certainly go over a pure R&B base.
On the other hand, the tenor players Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons are playing syncopated flowing lines with reasonably radical harmonic extensions. In general conception they are more similar than different. Modern jazz is here. Bebop. No doubt about it. Bebop! Yet still with the blues!
Eckstine implores,
So blow Mr. Gene; blow Mr. Dexter, too.
Blow Mr. Gene, blow Mr. Dexter, too.
Maybe you can help me, and blow away the blues.
Audio:
Hasty transcription:
At the same session, Eckstine recorded his ballad “I Want to Talk About You” arranged by Tadd Dameron; eventually this song would be a significant anthem for John Coltrane.
TT 221: Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons
I think the mantle of first bebop tenor player is split between a couple of tenor giants, I'd like to see Wardell Grey, Teddy Edwards and maybe even Don Byas, although he does still have many swing elements in his approach, share the mantle with Dexter.