Dexter Gordon lost most of the 1950s. Addiction took the decade. There were prison stretches and long gaps where he barely recorded. A couple of albums in the middle of the decade, then silence again. This was the guy who defined bebop tenor in the 1940s. Coltrane learned from him. Rollins learned from him. And for almost ten years he was just gone.
Then Blue Note signed him in 1961 and he made Go.
Here is the setup. August 27, 1962, at Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, Alfred Lion producing, one day of recording. The band was Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass, Billy Higgins on drums. Blue Note regulars, guys who played together all the time. Six tunes, about 37 minutes, out before the end of the year as BLP 4112.
I love this album. It might be the easiest five star record in the whole Blue Note catalog. Put it on for somebody who has never heard jazz and they get it in about a minute. Put it on for somebody who has heard everything and they still get it. That almost never happens.
The opener is Cheese Cake, a Gordon original. Medium tempo, simple line, and then Dexter just goes. That big tone comes out of the speakers and fills the room. He plays behind the beat the way he always did, laying back like he has all day. Higgins is the other star here. That ride cymbal never stops smiling. People always say Billy Higgins sounded happy when he played. It is true and this record is the proof.
Then track two flips it. I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry is a ballad and Dexter was one of the great ballad players ever. He quotes songs, he takes his time, he lets notes hang. No rush at all. Five and a half minutes and you wish it were ten.
Second Balcony Jump is credited to Billy Eckstine and Gerald Valentine, and it goes back to the early forties, first cut by Earl Hines and his orchestra in 1942. Dexter played in Eckstine's band from 1944 to 1946, so this is him reaching back toward his own beginnings with twenty more years of life behind it. Love for Sale swings hard. Where Are You is the second ballad and it is just as good as the first. Three O'Clock in the Morning closes it, an old waltz turned into a swinger. On paper that song should not work on a hard bop record. It works.
The thing about Go is there is no filler and no fat. Six songs, every one lands. Sonny Clark comps like he can read Dexter's mind. Warren and Higgins lock in and just let it ride. Ira Gitler wrote in the original liner notes that everyone was really together, in all the most positive meanings of that word, and for once liner notes were not exaggerating.
Two days later the same four guys went back to Van Gelder's and cut A Swingin' Affair, which is also really good. Blue Note sat on it for two years and finally put it out in 1964. That tells you something about how much material Dexter was producing in that stretch. Two classic albums in one week, and one of them waited in a vault.
Of the two, Go is the one usually named as Dexter's own favorite. That comes down through the label rather than a documented interview, so take it as it comes. But it lines up with how the record sounds.
And then he left. Soon after those sessions Dexter took work in Europe and ended up staying about fourteen years, mostly in Copenhagen. So Go is basically the last thing he did as a New York musician before becoming an expat legend. He came back to the States in 1976 and the comeback was a huge story. But that is a different chapter. Go is the sound of the first comeback, the one where he got his career back.
There is a sadder note here too. Sonny Clark died in January 1963, a few months after these sessions. He was 31. Go is some of the last great playing he put on tape. Worth remembering when you hear how alive he sounds on it.
This is a perfect Sunday record. Afternoon, a glass of wine, side one. Cheese Cake into the ballad into Second Balcony Jump. Flip it, finish the glass, done. It never asks much of you and it always delivers. Some records you have to work at. This one just plays.
If you are buying, originals of BLP 4112 cost real money now, like every classic Blue Note. The good news is Go has been reissued constantly and the modern pressings sound great. You do not need a first pressing to hear what Higgins is doing back there. Any clean copy will do it.
I keep going back and forth on whether Go or A Swingin' Affair is the better date. The answer is Go. The song selection is better and the ballads are better. But buy both eventually. Same band, same week, same studio. It is the closest thing to being in the room two nights in a row.