Dexter Gordon (tenor sax); Bud Powell (piano); Pierre Michelot (bass); Kenny Clarke (drums).
When you're feeling down, pick up a Dexter Gordon Blue Note. It mightn't cure the Lockdown Blues but it certainly helps. This is Dexter in 1963 with last night's subject, Bud Powell, on piano and once again the pianist proves his detractors wrong with some fine playing. The ever dependable Frenchman Pierre Michelot is on bass and another American expat, Kenny Clarke, is on drums. It was almost as if they'd moved 52nd St to the 19th Arrondissement.
Dexter is at his finest with perhaps a slight whiff of Trane as he gets into his stride on the uptempo numbers (Scrapple and Broadway). On the slows the emotion is poured out without being sentimentalised. Willow Weep For Me is practically a blues whilst Stairway to the Stars is textbook balladry by both tenor and piano - two musicians who perfected the art of ballad playing.
Night in Tunisia, not surprisingly has Powell and Clarke well featured and so it should - they were in at the birth! Dexter's coda at the end is something else.
As long as I've got my nightly Blue Note fix I'll be happy to stay locked down!
Lance
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