Gene Ammons & Dexter Gordon The Chase

15 original albums with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Buck Clayton, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Parker, Gene Ammons, Wardell Grey, Melba Liston, Ben Webster, Duke Ellington, Bud Powell, Hampton Hawes, Billy Higgins, Max Roach, Billy Eckstine and Herbie Hancock, among others…

Ammons, whose studio recordings of the period were somewhat commercial, is heard in excellent form playing a blues and three standards with the backing of a fine rhythm section: Hampton Hawes (who unfortunately sticks to electric piano), electric bassist Bob Cranshaw, drummer Kenny Clarke and Kenneth Nash on congas. Best of all is a 17-minute blues on which Ammons welcomes fellow tenor Dexter Gordon, cornetist Nat Adderley and altoist Cannonball Adderley; the four horns all get to trade off with each other. This is one of the better late-period Gene Ammons records.

Dexter Gordon (tenor sax) entered the 1970s — as well as his career’s quarter-century mark — on a definite upstroke with the sly, sexy — and above else — stylish platter The Panther! (1970). Gordon commands a quartet whose membership boasts luminaries Tommy Flanagan (piano), Larry Ridley (bass), and Alan Dawson (drums). Remarkably — or perhaps simply a testament to Gordon and company’s prowess — the album’s half-dozen sides all hail from a single early July 1970 get-together. The material is divided between outstanding interpretations of the Great American Songbook classic “Body and Soul,” the Mel Tormé co-penned seasonal standard “The Christmas Song” aka “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,” Clifford Brown’s “Blues Walk,” and a trio of Gordon originals.

This excellent Columbia album was recorded less than a year after Dexter Gordon's well-publicized tour of the United States following a dozen years spent living in Europe. With assistance from such other major players as trumpeters Woody Shaw and Benny Bailey, vibraphonist Bobby Gordon sounds in superlative form on Woody Shaw's "The Moontrame," four standards and his own "Fried Bananas." In addition to the original program (which features Dexter with an all-star tentet), the 1997 CD reissue adds two 1979 features for vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson ("Diggin' It" and "It's Only a Paper Moon") which were originally released on Gordon's Great Encounters; trumpeter Shaw and trombonist Curtis Fuller co-star with Gordon. An excellent acquisition.

Dexter Gordon features three concerts filmed in 1963 and 1964 in Holland, Switzerland and Belgium that highlight the bebop legend's classic style and silky tone. Filmed while Dexter was living in Europe, these shows feature legendary side musicians such as Art Taylor (drums) and Kenny Drew (piano) and jazz classics "Blues Walk", "A Night In Tunisia", "Body And Soul" and others. One of the most influential saxophonists in jazz history (both John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins claim him as an influence), Dexter Gordon is captured in sharp form and style on this 70-minute tour de force.

Dexter Gordon had such a colorful and eventful life (with three separate comebacks) that his story would make a great Hollywood movie. The top tenor saxophonist to emerge during the bop era and possessor of his own distinctive sound, Gordon sometimes was long-winded and quoted excessively from other songs, but he created a large body of superior work and could battle nearly anyone successfully at a jam session. His first important gig was with Lionel Hampton (1940-1943) although, due to Illinois Jacquet also being in the sax section, Gordon did not get any solos.

The twin tenor sax tradition yielded grand pairings with the likes of Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon, Arnett Cobb and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, and Al Cohn and Zoot Sims. This one-shot teaming of Charlie Rouse and Paul Quinichette brought forth a union of two distinctly different mannerisms within the mainstream jazz continuum. Rouse, who would go on to prolific work with Thelonious Monk and was at this time working with French horn icon Julius Watkins, developed a fluid signature sound that came out of the more strident and chatty style heard here. By this time in 1957, Quinichette, nicknamed the Vice Prez for his similar approach to Lester Young, was well established in the short term with Count Basie…