Lullaby of Birdland [Import]

Dexter Gordon | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 13, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: A Jazz Hour With
• ASIN: B0000248P0
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,964 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two Thumbs Up...., August 27, 2007

By 

Brian E. Williams "LemmingRebel" (SC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lullaby For A Monster (Audio CD)

...Dexter Gordon pulls together an amazingly full sound for a simple trio. Strikes a delicate balance between sounding both raw and refined. It's high up on my CD rotation list now. WHooppee!

6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Any title here inscribed could only pale in comparison, January 28, 2008

By 

Timothy Nelms - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lullaby For A Monster (Audio CD)

With a name like 'Lullaby for a Monster', it would seem the only reasonable explanation for this album's failure to achieve that status accorded 'Kind of Blue', 'A Love Supreme', and their likes, is that some catastrophe resulted in the recording being unlistenable. For example, perhaps Mr Gordon was in some altered state of mind and tried a musical experiment that in retrospect was terribly misguided -- like: he decreed that all the instruments backing him be manned by cats. Or: the album's cuts all consist of Mr Gordon, unaccompanied, softly serenading Grendel, Polyphemus, Godzilla, the Jub-jub Bird, and various characters from Sesame Street to sleep. Or: there is no music on this album.

Surely something of this nature must have occurred, or this work could not be wallowing in obscurity as it is -- correct?

To the contrary! Far from falling short of its exalted name, the album's music, from the beginning of the first track to the end of the last, asserts confidently that, not only does it deserve the title, but NO OTHER TITLE WAS POSSIBLE OR SUFFICIENT. Only two musicians are involved aside from Mr Gordon, and neither is a cat -- the legendary Niels Pedersen, on bass, and the drummer Alex Riel. With this sparse instrumentation, Mr Gordon and his allies conduct a private war against the universe.

I have heard perhaps 18 or 20 different versions of 'On Green Dolphin Street' (originally a film score), but this one far outstrips them all, even Miles Davis' from Stockholm, and Eric Dolphy's from 'Outward Bound'. Mr Pedersen's playing here, as throughout, is sui generis. The opening tune, 'Nursery Blues', is a simplistic, vaguely childlike melody along the lines of some of Albert Ayler's favored prowling grounds. 'Good Bait' as interpreted here continues its habit of being difficult to distinguish from 'Heart & Soul'. Donald Byrd's 'Tanya', something of a signature tune for Mr Gordon, is given fine treatment, although the Standard Rendition must remain the version from 1961's 'One Flight Up'.

But the album's supreme masterpiece is the title track, a transcendent piece of single-reed wizaldry that makes you want to punch your colleagues and declare war on the Stars. (I apologize for using the word 'wizaldry'. Well, 'word'.)