Dexter Gordon: Bebop to Copenhagen

The story of how one of jazz's great innovators left the country for Copenhagen in 1962. Why did he leave and what effect did this move have on his legacy?

An autographed photo of Dexter Gordon with his bandmates. — A young Dexter Gordon (left) with Joe Louis and Lionel Hampton, with an inscription to his mother.

May 5, 2014

BY Ben Phelan

Autographed pictures are a familiar sight at ANTIQUES ROADSHOW. But a group of autographed photos brought by a guest to our June 2013 Anaheim ROADSHOW is special in a number of ways. First of all, the people depicted in the photos are not merely famous, but stars of the first order — Sarah Vaughan and Lionel Hampton — and two flat-out geniuses — Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. More remarkably, the person to whom the autographs were given was one of these stars' peers, a musical legend in his own right: Dexter Gordon. Los Angeles-based Collectibles expert Laura Woolley, of the Collector's Lab, was surprised to see that such a collection even existed. She estimated that the photos, now in the possession of Gordon's daughter, might bring in at least $15,000 at auction.

In the 1960s, bebop innovator Dexter Gordon gravitated to Copenhagen — a city full of jazz clubs, thick with talent, and a public hungry to hear this new form of American classical music

The four autographed photos from the Dexter Gordon Collection

An autographed photo from Dexter Gordon's collection.

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Swing to Bebop

When Gordon was getting his start in the early 1940s, says jazz writer Scott Yanow, swing was the primary mode of jazz. Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman led big bands that played a melodic, propulsive form of music that was sophisticated and intelligent, but accessible. To pilfer a phrase associated with the bubble-gum music of American Bandstand, swing had a great beat, and you could dance to it. This made swing not only the dominant jazz idiom, but the dominant form of popular music. Basie, Ellington, Goodman and their peers all had big hits.

Gordon was a coveted player in some of the biggest bands of this era, playing alongside Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine and others. All the while, he was developing a new style that would elevate his stature, and indeed the jazz form itself. Based on a breakout performance with Gillespie in 1945, Gordon came to be known as the first tenor-saxophone player in a new form of jazz that started to push against some of the boundaries of music itself — bebop.

"In 1945," says Yanow, "Dexter Gordon was the most modern tenor-saxophone player in the world. It took a year at least for anyone else to catch up with him."

The bebop music that Gordon helped pioneer was a direct outgrowth of swing, but to the casual listener the two often sounded nothing alike. Where swing was direct, melodious and danceable, bebop tended to be a bit more cerebral, focused around harmony rather than melody, and perhaps better suited for listening than dancing.

"In swing," says Yanow, "you could hear the main melody, even when players were improvising on it. In bebop, the improvisation was based less on melody than on the chord changes. People would have to hear it a few times to get into it. It was exciting and emotional music, and it swung, but the rhythms were more jagged. If you were into Glenn Miller, you weren't even sure if bebop was music or not."

But to jazz players, the sound of Gordon and bebop was electrifying. In one of jazz's greatest figures, John Coltrane, you can clearly hear Dexter Gordon's influence. "Coltrane came out of Gordon," says Yanow. "Coltrane went much further than that, but that's where he started."

Appraisal: Dexter Gordon Photo Group, ca. 1950

Transcript

GUEST: This photo of Duke Ellington was given to my grandmother and my father when he was a teenager. My grandfather used to be the doctor of Duke Ellington, and he passed away, and I guess he dedicated this photo to my father and my grandmother. And my father ended up being a jazz musician years later. So we're fortunate to have this.

APPRAISER: You're going to have to elaborate. So who's your father?

GUEST: Oh, my father is Dexter Gordon.

APPRAISER: So your father is the Dexter Gordon.

GUEST: Famous tenor player and innovator of the bebop era, who has influenced John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. He's a fantastic jazz musician. In the '80s, he made this movie called Round Midnight, which was based on a jazz musician living in Paris. From that movie, he was nominated for an Academy Award in 1987.

APPRAISER: And I think he actually... Didn't he win the Grammy as well?

GUEST: Yes, the album did win a Grammy. And also, Herbie Hancock, who composed the music for the film, also won an Academy Award for music.

APPRAISER: He has so many lives as a musician.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: And a professional career. He played his entire life. He had an exceptionally long career.

GUEST: Yeah, in the '60s he did leave the States and lived in Copenhagen and in Paris. In the '70s, he came back to the States and he made an album called Homecoming, which was recorded at the Village Vanguard, which brought him back to the States and created a whole new fan base for him. And in the '80s, was offered this movie project from a famous French director named Bertrand Tavernier.

APPRAISER: So many times, we hear people say that they hope they have a national treasure, but your father really was a national treasure, and he's a jazz legend that influenced so many musicians. And like you said, he popularized the bebop on the tenor saxophone. What we have in front of us, the Duke Ellington up there, which is Duke Ellington signing it to your grandmother and to your father. And we have Sarah Vaughan, who wrote a really fun inscription to him.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: We have the Billie Holiday down there that's written to your father, and we also have this one that is your father on the left, with Joe Lewis and Lionel Hampton.

GUEST: My father dedicated it to his mother, because he was in his 20s at that time. So I have his signature, as well, his autograph.

APPRAISER: So he signed this for his mother?

GUEST: Yes, my grandmother.

APPRAISER: And what I love about this photo is, one of his nicknames was Long Tall Dexter because he's 6'6". So he makes Lionel Hampton look exceptionally small in this photo.

GUEST: He was a little guy.

APPRAISER: He was little, and it's even dramatized by the fact that your father's 6'6". So in terms of value, if we were putting a value on these, just if they were signed to anybody, if it's Billie Holiday signing to someone that we don't know, it has one value. But the fact that they're signed to your father and he is who he is takes it to a completely different level. So if you were to insure these, you would definitely want to insure them for no less than $15,000.

GUEST: Whoa.

A Move Abroad

At the same time as the bebop revolution, rock and roll began its ascendance. Work for men like Gordon grew ever harder to find. Add to that the fact that, as the civil rights movement gathered force and race relations in the States grew worse than ever, there seemed to be little reason for a talent like Gordon to stay in the country. So in 1962, he joined many other jazz musicians and embarked for Europe. Many of Gordon's peers gravitated to Copenhagen, Denmark, a city full of jazz clubs, thick with talent, and with a public hungry to hear this new form of American classical music.

In every way imaginable, life in Copenhagen was easier for Gordon. He had access to a deep pool of talented players to collaborate with, many of them on — or nearly on — his level. Plus, Europeans generally viewed jazz musicians as the artists that they were and felt themselves to be, not as purveyors of youth-corrupting race music, as was the case in some parts of the U.S. While in Copenhagen, Gordon was able to record continually. He was lucky in that regard. Unlike a lot of brilliant bebop players who found themselves no longer in demand, Gordon was captured on tape at the peak of his powers. There is not a bad record in his discography, says Yanow.

Homecoming

Meanwhile, back in the States, Gordon was being slowly forgotten. He was abroad for 14 years, and plenty of music came and went. It was the rock-star era; a musician was only as popular as his last cut. Yet when Gordon returned to the United States in 1976, the public suddenly remembered. The lines to hear him play, says Yanow, went around the block. He remained in the States until the end of his life, in 1990.

"Throughout its history," Yanow says, "jazz was a search for freedom." And yet to be free, Gordon had to follow his own sense of music out of the country of his birth, and indeed of jazz's birth. While he was abroad, the public briefly forgot Dexter Gordon. But as these photographs attest, his colleagues and friends who knew him best, and who understood the rarity of his gift, never did.

Ben Phelan