Search - Gordon, Hampton :: A Day In Copenhagen

DEXTER OH YEAH

Nikica Gilic | Zagreb, Croatia | 01/03/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dexter Gordon is one of those jazz giants I have only started looking (listening) into...

They say he was influential on Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and other seminal tenorists (see Nat Hentoff's lovely liner notes), but Dexter, judging from this album, can hold his own in any company. This album is BEAUTIFUL; mostly anchored in hard-bop, but diverse, with blues, ballads and lot of drive. The band is excellent, no small thanks to Slide Hampton

who played some mean trombone, arranged the stuff and wrote some of the songs.

But, in addition to originals, there are some trully magnificent readings of jazz standards - I can't say which is better: uptempo version of "You don't know what love is" or quartet version of "Shadow of your smile"...



This music, recorded in 1969 is timeless in the best sense of the word, accesible to jazz fanatics and general audinces (IMHO)."