‘Our Man In Paris’: Dexter Gordon’s Iconic Bebop Touchstone
Featuring jazz masters Bud Powell and Kenny Clarke, the tenor saxophone giant’s 1963 Blue Note session is a bebop classic.
After a decade in the doldrums, Dexter Gordon underwent a creative rebirth in 1960 that cemented his status as a jazz giant. The catalyst for his transformation was accepting producer Alfred Lion’s invitation to sign with Blue Note Records, an independent New York record label at the forefront of the modern jazz movement. The saxophonist’s alliance with Lion was highly fruitful, arguably producing the best work of his long and storied career. Of Gordon’s nine studio sessions for Blue Note between 1961 and 1965, Our Man In Paris is widely considered his finest.
Gordon’s rise to fame was meteoric. A doctor’s son from Los Angeles, he began playing the clarinet before switching to the tenor saxophone. By 17, he was on the road with vibraphone maestro Lionel Hampton’s big band. Four years later, in 1944, he spent six months with Louis Armstrong before joining singer Billy Eckstine, whose band, which contained alto saxophone giant Charlie Parker, was the crucible where a radical new style called bebop was forged. In 1945, Gordon, then 22 and a devout disciple of bebop, cut the first of many sessions as a leader for the Savoy label.
Order Dexter Gordon’s Our Man In Paris on vinyl now.
But after taking the US jazz scene by storm, Gordon fell on hard times in the 1950s. A heroin addiction put the brakes on a once-promising career. Prosecuted for narcotics possession, he spent more time in prison than in the recording studio. But there was a light at the end of a dark tunnel: In February 1960, Gordon was released on parole and began to piece together his shattered music career. He was asked to appear in a Los Angeles production of The Connection, a play about junkie musicians. The play’s success led to The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon, a one-off recording for the Jazzland label in 1960. And that was when Alfred Lion entered Gordon’s orbit.
After four top-notch sessions for Lion at Blue Note, including the celebrated 1962 album Go! – Gordon accepted an offer from British saxophonist and jazz club owner Ronnie Scott in September 1962 to work in London. His success in London led to an engagement in Copenhagen, Denmark. Gordon liked the city and its people so much that he decided to stay: He became a Danish citizen and remained there for fourteen years.
Alfred Lion, who regularly corresponded with Gordon by letter, was keen to continue making records with him so, in May 1963, Lion sent his partner Francis Wolff to Paris to oversee a day-long Blue Note session for the 40-year-old saxophonist at the city’s CBS Studios. What resulted was Our Man In Paris.
Gordon’s sidemen were pianist Bud Powell and drummer Kenny Clarke, both bebop luminaries then living in Paris, and French bassist Pierre Michelot. After rehearsing a mixture of covers and original material, Wolff decided that jazz standards were the way forward. Its title a nod to Graham Green’s 1958 spy novel, Our Man In Havana, Our Man In Paris included a high-octane reworking of Charlie Parker’s bebop staple, “Scrapple From The Apple” and a vigorous rendition of the Count Basie-associated “Broadway,” where Gordon’s big, gruff sax sound contrasted with Powell’s quicksilver piano. In between the uptempo burners were the bluesy “Willow Weep For Me” and a tender take on the jazz standard, “Stairway To The Stars,” a mellow groove that allowed Gordon to show his much-vaunted lyrical side. The album closed on a febrile high with a blistering revamp of Dizzy Gillespie’s exotic bebop classic, “A Night In Tunisia.”
In later years, Gordon – who returned to America in 1976 – would enjoy a second and even more commercially successful renaissance, which saw him sign with a major record label and then receive an Academy Award nomination for his acting role in Bertrand Tavernier’s acclaimed 1986 film, Round Midnight. Interestingly, the movie was set in Paris, the city that had given its name to arguably the brightest jewel in the saxophonist’s back catalog: Our Man In Paris, a classic album whose brilliance remains undimmed with time.
