Dexter Gordon: Go! (Blue Note 85 series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note 85 series edition marks the label's 85th birthday with one of its best-loved sessions. In 2019 the Library of Congress added Go! to the National Recording Registry.

This edition

• Blue Note 85 series
• Stereo mix

About the album

Some sessions sound like a night out even when they happen in a studio. Dexter Gordon cut Go! on August 27, 1962 at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, and Ira Gitler's liner notes said it matched the relaxed atmosphere of the best nightclub recordings, because everyone was really together. Gordon had been out of the spotlight for a stretch, and this record caught him in a glorious second wind, happy, loose and swinging hard from the first bar.

Sonny Clark plays piano, Butch Warren bass and Billy Higgins drums, and they give Gordon all the room his big, warm tenor needs. "Cheese Cake" is his own swinging opener, "I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" and "Where Are You" show off his ballad tenderness, "Second Balcony Jump" bounces along happily, and "Three O'Clock in the Morning" closes the set with a wink. Michael Cuscuna later included it in Blue Note's RVG series in 1999.

AllMusic gives it five stars, and it's widely hailed as one of Gordon's greatest albums. They called him Long Tall Dexter, and on this evidence the name undersold him.

Also at Kops: more Dexter Gordon on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 84112), a reissue of the 1962 album.