Label: Blue Note Records (Europe), 0946 3 55501 2 2
Style: Jazz, Bop, Saxophone Jazz
Country: Los Angeles, California, U.S. (February 27, 1923 - April 25, 1990)
Time: 38:29
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 279 Mb
A
Swingin’ Affair was the second of Gordon’s 1962 recorded Blue Note
sessions, taped a day after the similarly iconic Go. Connoisseurs of the
label will doubtless fondly remember the original red-washed cover shot
of a laughing Dexter and Barbara Long’s evocative sleeve notes. Buyers
of this reissue will find the former added – minute-sized and seemingly
as an afterthought – on the back cover, while the latter are slashed in
half for no readily apparent reason. One can only hope that the current
owners of the Blue Note catalogue will come up with the definitive
answer to all this revisionist nonsense in what is the label’s 80th
anniversary year. Fingers crossed. Apart from a wholly unnecessary
addition of a solo track by Sonny Clark recorded two years earlier, the
albums’ musical virtues have fortunately been allowed to stand as they
are, confirming that the 1960s were Gordon’s peak. Everything from the
joyous opener ‘Soy Califa’ through the melancholy balladry of ‘Don’t
Explain’ to the groovy ‘The Backbone’ is the stuff from which the
leader’s legend was carved. However, it’s a little difficult to gauge
who might buy this version, which, to this writer’s mind, is only one
step up from the line of horrendously rejigged Italian bootlegs that
proliferated in the 1980s. Blue Notes were always records you could
judge (and which sold) by their covers: I just can’t help thinking that
there’s something a tad dishonourable in trying to palm off a gatefold
sleeve and a couple of photos we’ve seen already as a USP. You pays your
money.
(jazzwise.com/reviews/review?slug=dexter-gordon-a-swingin-affair)
01. Soy Califa (06:27)
02. Don't Explain (06:06)
03. You Stepped Out Of A Dream (06:34)
04. The Backbone (06:48)
05. Until The Real Thning Comes Along (06:49)
06. McSplivens (05:43)
No comments:
Post a Comment