Dexter Blows Hot And Cool

So Springtime is upon us and the light nights are here.  It may be a dull, overcast Sunday, but what the hell.  Let's stick on some more vinyl and blast it out like we mean it.

I've found myself reaching for a jazz masterpiece of perfection.  I bought Dexter Blows Hot And Cool in my sojourn in the capital some time in the eighties, when I was full of my
love of modern jazz, that seemed to effortlessly combine with my equally strong love of beat-inspired poetry and prose and left bank Parisian outpouring of ideas and beliefs from the twenties.  All Henry Miller and F Scott meets Kerouac and the rest.

Somehow it was all combined with records like this one.  Dexter Gordon, the great early bebop tenor saxophonist, and his band, including young pianist Carl Perkins, released this in 1955, though my copy was a re-release from Boplicity records with sleeve notes from Honest Jon from 1984.  The sleeve notes say the record was originally released on "the obscure Dooto label" when Gordon was 32.  It also relays a little tale that the opener Silver Plated had been on a local village bar in Jamaica in the 50's, which I find particularly inspirational.  I love the power of music to connect people, from that wonderful sunny island on the other side of the world seventy years ago, to me in overcast England in the third decade of the twentieth century.  Sit back, sip a beer and imagine the hip cats doing their thing.  Music and words can do that.  And the sax has a language its own.  

I was always impressed by the fluent, fluid style of playing on tunes such as  Silver Plated, the heartfelt cover of Cry Me A River and the invitation to get up and dance that is Bonna Rue.  Gordon of course has an appearance in On The Road, where Jack waxes lyrical about his bebop classic The Hunt.  That's certainly a tune to dig out, so easy with the wonders of the web, though less authentic than finding it in a dusty second hand shop.  The same goes for Go, his seminal album from 1962.  The perfect way to follow Dexter Plays.  So very good.

 So what's it to be on this bright March lunchtime, the day the clocks go forward and Spring in England is really about to start.

First off, I dig out my Brunswick box set from The Who which I acquired a few years back. It would be wonderful to own the originals of these slices of brilliance. They're on the holy grail of the second hand records list. I always keep my eyes open for them when I'm checking out vinyl in dusty vintage shops, or at least I did before lockdown. But the chances of finding original copies of I'm The Face/Zoot Suit and I Can't Explain are pretty remote. But I keep looking, along with a few other gems I could mention and probably will at some point.

So it's I Can't Explain first and those crisp, chiming chords blast into the mind and put a smile on the Face, just like they have all my life, since my twelfth birthday, when Beaty Meaty Big And Bouncy came into my possession for the first time. I Can't Explain could very well be the greatest record ever made, with its teenage questioning and wonder at life, its exuberance at what it all holds and vital, furious vocal fire, which precedes the pilled up modernist excess of My Generation and, in a sense, exceeds it. I Can't Explain is totally authentic, the genuine article, as far as these ears are concerned. Plus it sort of summarises all of Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy into a two minute pop song, which is no mean feat.

A couple more from the box set follow, both sides of the debut High Numbers single, Zoot Suit and I'm The Face. Penned by the late, great modernist guru, Peter Alexander Edwin Meaden, they ring as true today as they did when the record was first issued on Fontana back in the sixties. Love them both. And both have Quadrophenia connections, of course. The intro to Zoot Suit takes me straight to that clip in the film when Jimmy's getting ready to hit the tiles on Saturday night. And I'm The Face is of course reprised on the album in Sea And Sand. All quality stuff.

And after that, what then? Next up is a move to Tamla Motown and Junior Walker's greatest hits. First off the magnificence of Shotgun with its full on sax and driving beat that just make you want to dance round the kitchen. Some of the others we know well. How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You and Roadrunner are Tamla staples. Others are less familiar. What Does It Take is a beautiful, soulful tune that just gets inside and takes you off to those heady days when soul was young and the world was opening up to new ideas.

But there you go. Coffee's ready and its aroma's wafting across. The sax is screaming and the rhythm hard hitting. There are more records to be listened to, books to be read, films to be watched. And, yes, it's almost Spring. What more could a boy about town want out of this glorious life?