Le Coiffeur – Dexter Gordon
This light, catchy Dexter Gordon composition is carefree, sunny and sweet.
- Recording: Dexter Gordon - Gettin' Around
- Recorded on: May 28, 1965
- Label: Blue Note (BLP 4204)
- Concert Key: B-flat
- Style: Latin (Mambo)
- Tenor Sax - Dexter Gordon
- Vibes - Bobby Hutcherson
- Piano - Barry Harris
- Bass - Bob Cranshaw
- Drums - Billy Higgins
Video
- The Aaron Johnson Quintet, Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 2013: Aaron Johnson, alto sax; Benny Benack III, trumpet; Guy Mintus, piano; Russell Hall, bass; Joe Saylor, drums
One of Dexter Gordon's musical heroes was Tadd Dameron. In jazz critic and journalist Ira Gitler's wonderful book Jazz Masters of the Forties (The Roots of jazz)
, Dexter Gordon recounts a meeting with Tadd Dameron at Tadd's house in the spring of 1962. "I had a tune—really rather simple, but the way it lays, the only conceivable thing that I could think of, it was like a cha-cha. I was trying to pick it out on the piano, showing it to Tadd. Then he started playing it—working on it, polishing it, the changes. And when he got through with it, he made that thing sound so beautiful. He's got a musical green thumb."Paul Combs, who has just finished a new and important biography of Tadd Dameron, Dameronia: The Life and Music of Tadd Dameron (Jazz Perspectives)
is sure the song to which Dexter refers is Le Coiffeur.The composition has been recorded by modern-day pianist Dan Nimmer (with Wynton Marsalis' Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra) on his "Modern Day Blues" CD.
Many musicians have remarked on the similarities between Le Coiffeur and the theme from the TV show "I Love Lucy." Dexter's composition was copyrighted in 1962, after the "I Love Lucy" show went off the air.
Listen to drummer Billy Higgins talking with engineer Rudy Van Gelder and Don Sickler about Dexter Gordon and his earlier (1962) recordings with Dexter (Soy Califa and McSplivens) on our YouTube channel.
Dexter Gordon
February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990
Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon was born in Los Angeles, CA. In his last year of high school, he received a call from alto saxophonist Marshall Royal asking him to join the Lionel Hampton big band. This led to Dexter's first recording, with the Hampton band, on December 21, 1941. In 1944, after a few weeks with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and working and recording with Louis Armstrong's orchestra, Dexter joined Billy Eckstine and recorded with Eckstine's legendary band of soon-to-be jazz superstars that included Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons, Leo Parker, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, arranger Tadd Dameron and others, on September 5, 1944. Read more...