Dexter Gordon
Live at Carnegie Hall

He had spent fourteen years in the old Europe; but on the evening of September 23, 1978, two years after his return to the States, Dexter Gordon recaptured a New York that was very different from the one he had left years before. That evening at the Carnegie Hall there was a convivial atmosphere, made so by his usual and suggestive little speeches with which he used to introduce the pieces. The audience is complicit, thunderous applause, some composed ovations, the right welcome reserved for this Jazz legend.

The album follows the trail of Gordon's career: a deluge of old-fashioned Hard Bop, radiant, vibrant, vigorous, made even more powerful by Dexter's characteristic sound. Dexter's offering, at the tail-end of the '70s, a decade that had already left behind many of the Jazz revolutions/evolutions, seemed to have had its (glorious) time; but the warm response from the Carnegie Hall audience demonstrated that there is always a thirst for old style Jazz, yesterday as today, as always..

The album is straightforward, Dexter knows the craft, and when he catches the right evening, the good outcome of it is assured. Another old Jazz warhorse will be part of the party, namely Johnny Griffin, someone who even ended up dying in Europe, and presented by Dexter as the "European Sultan" (...). The two will share the stage for two tracks: the first, "Blues Up and Down", is an old Bop veiled with bluesy written by Sonny Stitt. The second is the piece that closes the evening, one of Dexter's warhorses, namely "Cheesecake".

Sonny and Dexter are in brilliant form, displaying power throughout the entire length of the piece, a fifteen-minute ride (concluded towards the end in a relaxed Blues conducted by the faithful Cables on piano, Reid on bass, and Gladden on drums, allowing Dex to thank musicians and audience), punctuated by piercing phrasing, right from the exposition of the famous theme after which their saxes will start to chase each other phrase by phrase, scale by scale: a true and powerful gallop race, which will see the two arrive ex aequo at the finish line.

The album also shows sophistication in an elegant way when the ballads dear to Dex come along, in this case as in "More Than You Know", and in which the delicate chords of Cables guide the sax of Gordon on its nocturnal journey. The album is well produced (Michael Cuscuna) and exceptionally played from the first to the last note. So, why let it escape you?