Dexter Gordon: Cinematic Sax

Although saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1923-1990) wasn't the sole jazz great to be cast prominently in a major film, his starring role in 'Round Midnight helped publicize a musical career marked by chronic declines and comebacks over 40 years. The distinctiveness of his sound -- big and deeply burnished, full of joie de vivre -- wasn't the cause for any of those declines in popularity. Rather, Gordon, whose style straddled swing and bop, seems to have been victimized in the marketplace by niche-preferring jazz fans. Two new CD compilations should win him new listeners.

The Complete Blue Note '60s Sessions packages six of his readily available CDs of recordings from 1961 to 1965 into a folder, enshrining a particularly fervent period. There's one unreleased selection, but a glory it is: a debonair interpretation of Gershwin's "Lady Be Good." The other "bonus" cuts are excerpts from interviews in which Gordon rambles (Charlie Parker was a genius is a typical profundity), but his conversational tone is illuminating. He sounds relaxed nearly to the point of slackness; still, close listening to his inflections (he guffaws at his own clichés) reveals an alert, ironic, comic intelligence.

Something of that speaking tone is carried over into his saxophone style. There's an emphasis on an unhurried sense of harmonic improvisation, humor evoked by quotes from trite pop material (like "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"), vocalisms (brawny growls and slurs) in the horn's lowest register, and a novel sense of phrasing and rhythm. The '60s represented a consolidation of these skills, and Blue Note producer Alfred Lion wisely surrounded Gordon with like-minded players. Gordon locks into the propulsive rhythms established by drummer Philly Joe Jones on " Smile," a Charlie Chaplin ballad transformed into a medium-uptempo romp. Gordon's empathy with pianist Bud Powell on the furiously boppish "A Night in Tunisia" is a major moment in both their careers.

Yet this empathic support doesn't account for some of the box's transcendent peaks, like ballads shaped by Gordon's enormous sound. "I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry" out-Sinatras Sinatra in suavely modulated self-pity. Billie Holiday's "Don't Explain" is given a tough-minded yet big-hearted interpretation. Gordon made a point of knowing the lyrics to ballads, even occasionally entertaining club audiences by reciting songs prior to blowing them, and he had a captivating way of conveying emotional energies encoded in banal words.

Anyone finding this six-disc box unaffordable might settle for Blue Note's single-disc compilations, The Best of Dexter Gordon and Ballads. But the best single-disc Gordon collection is on Prestige, Blue Dex: Dexter Gordon Plays the Blues. Although Gordon's soulful ballad playing is unrepresented, and it covers Gordon's recordings from a later period (1969-1973), it possesses a rowdy vitality even more awe-inspiring than many Blue Note sessions. There's a saucy version of Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk," and a previously unreleased duet with saxman James Moody full of good-natured jostling. No movie star (and few jazz luminaries) has sounded this lively since Gordon's final curtain call.

-- Norman Weinstein