A master of the tenor sax in the small-group bop setting,
Dexter Gordon's marvelous tone, elegant lead lines, and deliberate behind-the-beat phrasing made him an obvious influence on
John Coltrane and
Sonny Rollins, among others, and although his body of work is much lauded, he still manages to be somehow underappreciated in the pantheon of great tenor sax players. Beset with drug and other personal problems throughout his career,
Gordon had several "comebacks," but none more striking than his 1961 to 1965 sojourn with Blue Note Records, a period that produced
Gordon's best work.
Gordon released nine albums for the label in the early '60s, and this two-disc, 18-track compilation takes cuts from such stellar LPs as
Clubhouse,
Our Man in Paris,
One Flight Up, and
Go! to make a nice overview of the Blue Note years. The consistency on display here is startling, and if
Gordon wasn't as openly exploratory as
Coltrane or
Rollins, he didn't really need to be. He knew the pocket and he knew when to move it. Barring purchasing all of
Gordon's Blue Note albums individually (which isn't currently possible -- Blue Note really should reissue all of them), picking up this set is probably the next best thing. ~ Steve Leggett