Skip to main content

Dexter Gordon Revisited


Dexter Gordon on saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano
from the movie Round Midnight

Circa 1991, I took the Calcutta Metro from Rabindra Sarobar to Esplanade. I just had to visit Symphony, a very famous outlet for music cassettes. Looking for something on Jazz, I encountered 'The Best of Dexter Gordon.' I loved Jazz, I loved the tenor saxophone, I loved the feel of the cassette! So I bought it.

Little did I know that this little buy would soon become my favorite cassette, particularly for one of the tracks-Tanya-which I still consider the best Jazz composition ever. I would listen to it over & over again. One of my cousins had a minor altercation with me and decided to seek revenge by cutting the tape, since he knew very well how much I loved it! To this very day I've not been able to forgive him for his dark act.

The tape was somehow glued. I played it so often (after returning to Jamshedpur), it was worn ahead of its time! I was helpless and couldn't do anything about it. I even got it dubbed, but we somehow misplaced it. I looked for a replacement without any luck. Time finally took its toll and the cassette became almost unusable.

Imagine how overjoyed I felt when I came across it (now in CD) today @ The Forum! Tanya was still there, all of 18 mins of it! I bought it, coupled with Dexter's Ballads. The 2nd CD too turned out to be an excellent buy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This is what Bertrand Russell said about religion...

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. ... A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
6 comments
Read more

The year that was

I'm wearing a rather striking shirt, one that makes me feel like a clown fooling around in a graveyard. Roving eyes latch on to me and make me too conscious of myself. Checkered in red, grey, black and maroon, I've excused myself into donning it and looking silly for two reasons. It's Friday and…more importantly, the last working day of the year. Tailored half-a-year back, I never had the courage to wear it, not until today. It's that time of the year when it's time to reflect on the events that transpired. Last year ended on the worst possible note. Dad had expired and I was numb with shock. The repercussions rippled halfway thought this year. Things were so abysmal initially that I had lost the will to live. Acrid in everything I did, I was immensely angered by time phlegmatically flowing through its cadence. It was as if Dad meant nothing to anybody. What right did people have to live the way they always had when Dad was no more? Why was much of the world still ...
61 comments
Read more