Diggin' Dexter: An Analysis of Dexter Gordon's Improvisational Style
Filled with all the information you could ever need to start emulating Dexter Gordon’s instantly recognisable style, Diggin’ Dexter explores six solos from Dexter’s Blue Note era to identify the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic aspects that make up his deeply personal sound. As well as academic analysis, and identifying a number of aspects of Dexter’s style that you can start replicating, it also includes transcriptions of the following solos:
Second Balcony Jump - Go
Second Balcony Jump - Landslide
Willow Weep for Me - Our Man In Paris
The Backbone - A Swingin’ Affair
I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry - Go
Cheesecake - Go
Diggin’ Dexter is in PDF format.
Filled with all the information you could ever need to start emulating Dexter Gordon’s instantly recognisable style, Diggin’ Dexter explores six solos from Dexter’s Blue Note era to identify the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic aspects that make up his deeply personal sound. As well as academic analysis, and identifying a number of aspects of Dexter’s style that you can start replicating, it also includes transcriptions of the following solos:
Second Balcony Jump - Go
Second Balcony Jump - Landslide
Willow Weep for Me - Our Man In Paris
The Backbone - A Swingin’ Affair
I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry - Go
Cheesecake - Go
Diggin’ Dexter is in PDF format.
Filled with all the information you could ever need to start emulating Dexter Gordon’s instantly recognisable style, Diggin’ Dexter explores six solos from Dexter’s Blue Note era to identify the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic aspects that make up his deeply personal sound. As well as academic analysis, and identifying a number of aspects of Dexter’s style that you can start replicating, it also includes transcriptions of the following solos:
Second Balcony Jump - Go
Second Balcony Jump - Landslide
Willow Weep for Me - Our Man In Paris
The Backbone - A Swingin’ Affair
I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry - Go
Cheesecake - Go
Diggin’ Dexter is in PDF format.
For decades, jazz musicians have honed their craft by learning and studying the solos of famous musicians. This has led to the publication of many analyses of leading jazz musicians. However, such analyses typically focus on innovators within the genre, such as Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, with other musicians, even leading figures such as Dexter Gordon, being largely forgotten. While it is widely recognised that Dexter had a significant impact on the evolution of jazz, particularly through his influence on John Coltrane, very few studies have focussed on his improvisational style, and even fewer have studied multiple solos to provide detailed insights into his mature style. By analysing the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic content of six solos from Dexter’s time with Blue Note Records – ‘Cheesecake’, ‘The Backbone’, two versions of ‘Second Balcony Jump’, ‘Willow Weep for Me’ and ‘I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry’ – this study identifies numerous devices and tendencies within his style that musicians can incorporate into their own improvisations if they wish to emulate him. The combination of all the devices used makes Dexter’s style unique, but it is the use and frequent variation of a bank of melodic fragments, restrained use of non-diatonic note and scale choices, frequent delaying of harmonic resolutions, limited use of harmonic substitutions, a behind-the-beat time feel, and rhythmic variety that gives it much of its flair.
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