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…
Mosaic Select is a jazz reissue series of numbered limited-edition releases that focus on an artist's important but neglected work in a 3 CD set.
The music on Mosaic Select 14 was recorded live at the Keystone Korner, San Francisco, between May 13, 1978, and March 27, 1979
Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon had been an expatriate since 1963 when he discovered Europe was where the consistently paying jazz gigs were to be found. In 1976 he returned to the States and began recording for Columbia Records and also embarked on an acting career. Sony Legacy repackaged and re-released six Dexter Gordon albums of that era in their entirety with mini-LP sleeves and original cover art: Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard (1976), Sophisticated Giant (1977), Manhattan Symphonie (1978), Live at Carnegie Hall (1978), and Gotham City (1980).
This magnificent album of progressive jazz from the mid-'40s contains the earliest recordings released under Dexter Gordon's name. The opening session finds him in the company of Nat King Cole and Harry "Sweets" Edison. While Cole based much of his piano style on the creative accomplishments of Earl Hines, Gordon named Roy Eldridge and Lester Young as primary influences. The inspiration to emulate Prez, said Dex, "…came like a bolt out of the blue to me…I readily identified with his ideas and concepts…." This is superbly demonstrated in the relaxed jamming atmosphere of the first four tracks, particularly "I Blowed and Gone." Gordon said that by the time he joined the Lionel Hampton band in December of 1940, he'd been listening carefully to Prez "for three or four years"…
Taken from three separate sessions from 1945-'47, Dexter Rides Again showcases prime bebop sides Gordon cut for Savoy. His unique adaptation of Charlie Parker's alto conception to the tenor saxophone is displayed throughout, revealing a mix of fluid, hard-toned lines and a vibrato-heavy and vaporous ballad sound. And while Gordon's ballad mastery would come to the fore on his come-back albums for Blue Note in the '60s, the tenor saxophonist primarily sticks to up-tempo material here, a standard for most bebop sets. Abetted by a collective cast including the fine, yet rarely heard trumpeter Leonard Hawkins, baritone saxophonist Leo Parker, pianists Tadd Dameron and Bud Powell, and drummers Max Roach and Art Blakey, Gordon is in top form on a typical collection of self-penned, utility tunes, dispensing of involved head statements in favor of solo space…