Dexter Gordon - GO - RVG Edition (1962) [FLAC] {Remaster 1998}
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Recording Date: August 27, 1962 at he Van Gelder Studio
Originaly recorded and 24-bit remastered in 1998 by Rudy Van Gelder  
Release Date: 1999 Capitol

In May 1961, Dexter Gordon visited New York for the first time in over twelve years. During the week he was there, he recorded two albums for Blue Note, Doin' Ailright and Dexter Colling. These LPs, the main purpose of his visit, were warmly received by all segments of the jazz fraternity.
A year later, he again journeyed from California to New York, this time as a more permanent resident. I use the term "more permanent" because Gordon has not remained in New York constantly. It became a base of operations for playing excursions to Boston, Cape Cod and Rochester, and, at the end of August, his point of embarkation for England and continental Europe.
During the summer, Dexter did play a number of gigs in New York: a weekend at the Coronet; a Monday night at Birdland; an afternoon at the Jazz Gallery; a concert at Town Hall; and various one-nighters and one-afternooners. Everywhere he met with the same reaction - unbridled enthusiasm.
He drew the kind of response that you know is not mere hand service. At the Jazz Gallery, I observed this in an audience that included many younger fans - kids who were not just applauding him because he was the fabled Dexter Gordon of the past whom they were supposed to automatically revere. He reached them directly with the expansive emotion in his playing.
Love, warmth and sheer joy are all present in Gordon's sound and attack. It can be heard and felt in the tremendous drive of his up tempo work, the width and depth of his ballads, or anywhere in between. All these affirmative qualities are reiterated in this album. There is also evidence of change, harmonically, in the playing of a man who was known for his harmonic awareness back in the mid-forties. This is the kind of record that has you starting again from side one, track one, immediately after you have played both sides in their entirety.
Dexter's astute choice of a fine rhythm section was notaccidental.
These three players worked with him several times during the summer of 1962.
Sonny Clark is a real pro. His accompaniment is alive but never intrusive; his solos are articulated with a consistent clarity and contain personal, melodic ideas.
Butch Warren is rapidly establishing himself as one of the best young bassists on the New York scene. His lines swing along with no doubt as to the definition of the notes.
Billy Higgins doesn't beat the drums; he plays them like the musical instrument they collectively are, when in the right hands. His cymbal sound is exhilarating; his ear forever alert.
As a unit, Clark, Warren and Higgins have also been heard to advantage in Clark's Leapin' And Lopin' (BN 4091) and Jackie McLean's A Fickle Sononce (BN 4089).
Go! gets going with a piece of "Cheese Cake," a minor-key pattern reminiscent of "Topsy." Dexter soars like a condor over the Andes, with grandeur and great staying power.
His strength is present on "I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry," a seldom-done ballad he wisely revived, but it is strength with tenderness, carried by a beautiful, masculine sound that is neither Hawkins nor Young, but pure Gordon.
Jerry Valentine's "Second Balcony Jump" was in the libraries of both the Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine bands. Gordon was in the Eckstine band that played it, but it was Gene Ammons (not Gordon, as indicated in the liner notes on an EmArcy LP reissue) who took the solo on the original National recording. The construction of Dexter's first solo is marvelous and builds to a climax gradually. There's a semi-quote of Jimmy Heath's C.T.A. cleverly worked in. Then Clark plays a blithe, flowing solo before Dex comes back for a second, shorter, but again climactic summation that leads into part of Valentine's old arrangement and an abrupt ending.
The Latin backing for the melody statement of "Love For Sale" may not be exactly bossa nova, but the saxophone is certainly "boss" tenor. When the solos commence, the rhythm section shifts into 4/4. Dexter's playing is as broad-shouldered as he is; Sonny's piano delicate, yet always on solid ground.
"Where Are You" is another lovely ballad that, fortunately, has not been played into the ground. That huge Gordon sound, once described by Michael James as "cavernous," is again matched by the emotional content of his playing.
The closer "Three O'clock In The Morning," may seem like a strange piece of material for a modern jazzman to play, but Don Byas and Slam Stewart recorded it in the forties during 52nd Street's heyday. Dexter begins in a loping 2/4 that slides into 4/4. He injects wry humor with quotes from "Five O'Clock Whistle" and "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" (at three o'clock in the morning?) while blowing forcefully all the time in a substantial medium groove.
Gordon is a great advertisement for live jazz. When he really starts "stretchin' out" on a number, and his long, firmly-anchored legs begin vibrating rapidly from side to side, the intense swing of his music has a natural visual counterpart. It's true that you cannot see him in this album but you can feel the impact of his personality as it is poured into his music.
This session was not recorded in a nightclub performance but in its informal symmetry, it matches the relaxed atmosphere that the best of those made in that manner engender. Everyone was really together, in all the most positive meanings of that word. It was so good that Blue Note put these four men in the studio again, two days later. We'll be hearing that one in the near future.
Meanwhile, proceed directly to Go! You won't collect $200, but you will get a monopoly of Melody Avenue, Swing Street and Inspiration Place. 
- Ira Gitler, Original Liner Notes

Ira Gitler had no way of knowing when he wrote the original liner notes, but Dexter Gordon had bid New York and the U.S. adieu mere days after recording Go! The European sojourn that Gitler mentions in closing introduced the tenor saxophone giant to a music scene and a lifestyle far more accommodating to jazz musicians (especially those who had run afoul of New York's
"cabaret card" licensing laws) than anything America had to offer at the time. European audiences embraced Gordon with the awe and respect that a player of his stature deserves, and that he did not find Stateside to any substantial degree until his popular triumphs of the late seventies. The tenor saxophonist continued to visit America periodically, returning to Los Angeles to see family and making a few East Coast studio and live appearances, but he would not be based in the Apple again for over 15 years.
When he revisited New York in 1977, after his Columbia album Homecoming had further fueled the word-of-mouth frenzy generated by a few live appearances, I had the opportunity to interview Gordon for a magazine story. We met in his hotel room and talked, then headed to a Village record store where he was scheduled to meet fans and autograph albums. When I mentioned that, forced to choose a single Gordon LP for such purposes, I would select the present session, he smiled and replied in typically laconic fashion, "a classic."
Michael Cuscuna, Gordon's producer during the later part of his career, has reported that Go! was also Dexter Gordon's favorite Dexter Gordon album, and it's easy to hear why. He is simply at the top of his game, and the rhythm section is right with him. Sonny Clark, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins were one of Blue Note's most active units at the time, having worked together on two Jackie McLean sessions, a Don Wilkerson album, Clark's own Leapin' And Lopin' and the companion to this date (recorded two days later), Gordon's A Swingin' Affair. They acquit themselves memorably in each instance, whether in the sanctified atmosphere of Wilkerson's Preach Brother or one step from the edge of freedom during portions of McLean's A Fickle Sonance; but the muscular swing and heart-on-sleeve passion of Gordon's music was perhaps their ideal terrain. Clark, who had less than five months to live, sounds as if he had entered a new phase where greater harmonic sophistication complemented his already exceptional swing, soul and melodic clarity; while Higgins established a rapport with Gordon that led to further . recorded encounters as well as work together in the film 'Round Midnight.
Dexter Gordon is the major story here, however, as was 1 clear to everyone who heard the album at the time. This was J not just a classic, but an instant classic, a five-star recital that 1 captivated everyone who heard it. It confirmed the suspicion § raised by the 1961 Blue Note albums Doin' All right and Dexter Calling that,  whatever  difficulties  had   kept  the saxophonist in obscurity for more than a decade, they did not involve musical lapses. Gordon is not just as commanding
here as he had been on his influential Savoy performances of the mid-forties, he proves how visionary his early works had been by sounding totally contemporary in what was basically his original style. The presence, the drama, the harmonic sophistication and the ferocious momentum of his solos merge to form an instantly recognizable personality, which Gordon employs in the creation of improvised solos that tell complete stories. This genius for continuity is nowhere more evident than in "I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry" and "Where Are You," the set's two stunning ballads; but it can be heard on the faster tracks as well, reinforced by Clark's sixth sense for sustaining the flow as he moves out of and back into Gordon's statements. Given the coherence of the tenor solos, it is surprising that they have not provided inspiration to practitioners of. vocalese. (Kurt Elling did set words to Gordon's 1964 "Tanya" solo from the One Flight Up album, which can be heard on Elling's Blue Note album The Messenger.) A final word regarding quotations might be in order, since they are
| one of the identifying components of Gordon's playing. There is no question but that quotes can be a substitute for
J invention and have the potential to turn as annoying as any cliche; yet when applied as skillfully as Gordon uses them here, they can also be models of rhythmic and harmonic ingenuity. Try his allusion to "Mona Lisa" during "Second
| Balcony Jump," or the citation of "Mexican Hat Dance" that throws the second tenor solo on "Love For Sale" into overdrive. Like everything else on Go!, these are evidence of a talent that was truly magisterial.
-Bob Blumenthal, 1999

Tracks info 

1 CHEESE CAKE 6:30 (Dexter Gordon)
2 I GUESS I'LL HANG MY TEARS OUT TO DRY 5:18 (J.Styne-S.Cahn) 
3 SECOND BALCONY JUMP 7:02 (B.Eckstine-J.Valentine)
4 LOVE FOR SALE 7:34 (Cole Porter)
5 WHERE ARE YOU 5:17 (J.McHugh-H.Adamson)
6 THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 5:41 (J.Robledo-D.Terriss) 

Personel info

DEXTER GORDON, tenor sax; SONNY CLARK, piano; BUTCH WARREN, bass; BILLY HIGGINS, drums