Saga of the Book Tour
Part 1
Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon
October-December, 2018
Photo by Fiona Ross
This is Part 1 of the Saga of the Book Tour, 2018. Sophisticated Giant was officially released in November 2018 by University of California Press. I was so lucky to have the fabulous Alex Dahne as the Publicity Director and Cris Cooke as the Sales Manager at the Press. Not only do they know exactly what they are doing and what needs to be done but they do it with charm and grace and leave no email unanswered and no problem unsolved. Since I was a Road Manager for many years, I was able to handle most of the travel and requests for talks with the help of the book’s own road manager, the unequalled in all ways Jess Pinkham. I said I was ready to do book events for one year beginning November 2018, but I had no idea that the year would take me to so many places and that I would meet so many Dexter fans and sign so many books. At one point, I had the feeling that I once dreamed that I wrote a book and went on a book tour and had a book talk with Angela Davis and then when I looked up, it all came true. Well, life has a way of doing that sort of thing with me. Please forgive the extensive use of adjectives, often repeated, when I tell this saga. There are so many people to thank and I am so grateful to them all.
The tour was to begin in November but my friend, the phenomenal librarian at the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas, Austin, insisted on being the first place I came to talk about the book and the research I did there and go to eat in the best Mexican restaurant outside of Mexico I have ever known. Dell Hollingsworth is now a lifetime friend who suggested I apply for a Research Grant to go to the Harry Ransom Center to do my research on Dial Records rather than email her and call her every week with questions and having her send me letters and photos. One day she said, “You need to apply for a research grant to come here and do your own work instead of calling me every other day.” Of course, she was kidding, in her own sweet way. I went to Austin on October 24, 2018 and gave my first book talk and signed my first books. Thank you, Dell. 3,486 miles round trip.
When I got back home to New York, I took the cross-river trip on November 1, 2018 to Brooklyn for a talk at Greenlight Books. The always kind and generous Darryl Pinckney agreed to have the talk with me and my good friend, the actor Jasper McGruder agreed to read from the book. I had promised McNally Jackson that their store in SoHo would be my first book talk when the book was published but Cameron Scott kindly let Brooklyn and Greenlight go first. My editor John Papanek, without whom there would be no book, was there and friends and family came out to celebrate the book and the brilliant Darryl and talented Jasper made it seem easy to me to start doing what I would continue to do for the next year—talk about the book and answer questions about Dexter. Thank you, Darryl Pinckney, thank you Jasper McGruder, thank you Greenlight Bookstore.
For the official beginning of the book tour, my former PhD adviser, Professor Robin D. G. Kelley, renowned author of many books including the biography of Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of An American Original, invited me to give a talk at UCLA. We also had a book talk at Black-owned Eso Won Books in Lemeirt Park, one of the greatest bookstores in the world. Eso Won has sold my book from the beginning and James Fugate and Tom Robinson are my heroes. There was also a concert in Dexter’s honor at the World Stage on the same block as the bookstore, organized by Dexter’s very good friend and the man in charge of all things Los Angeles, Clint Rosemond. I did a radio program with LeRoy Downs and ate fried chicken from Gus’s World-Famous Fried Chicken (there begins the fried chicken saga). My friends Johnetta, Imani, and Bethani came to Los Angeles to support me and to make sure everything was as it should be. They were once referred to as “the bodyguards” but they are my sister/friends and they are always there when I need them. I rented an Airbnb in Venice Beach and Bethani and I stayed there and walked to the beach and along a canal in lovely weather I was in Los Angeles from November 4 to November 10, 2018. 5 580 miles round trip.
With Robin D. G. Kelley and James Fugate
The next event was a very big one, a book talk at McNally Jackson in SoHo. That was the first place I wanted to give a talk and the store was so fortunate to have Cameron Scott in charge of events. Cam is a poet, philosopher and book genius from Winnepeg, Manitoba. He loves Jazz and he replied to the request to have a book talk at MJ within moments of Jess Pinkham’s email. The talk was on November 13, 2018 and Farah Jasmine Griffin and Fred Moten agreed to lead the discussion. These are two remarkable scholars who I first met when I went to Graduate School. I have studied with both of them, learned to go deeper from both of them, and now have them as lifelong friends. Thanks to Cam, Sophisticated Giant was a staff pick and McNally Jackson became our New York bookseller. I still go there often to sign books and visit with Cam and Gleb (the other fabulous bookseller).
With Farah Jasmine Griffin and Fred Moten
On November 16, 2018, I took the train to Washington, DC, for a book talk and tv interview with my old friend, poet and Jazz scholar Reuben Jackson. He had some great questions and knows as much about the music as almost anyone else. Thank you, Reuben. 454 miles round trip.
On November 18, 2018, I flew to Barcelona with an invitation from the Cultural Affairs Office of the State Department under the guidance of Joan Cararach, director of the Barcelona Jazz Festival. I had a lovely room in a beautiful hotel near some great restaurants and in walking distance to the Mercat de la Boqueria. My friend Lori from New Orleans joined me there and my Godson Jacob flew there from the Bahamas. The schedule was quite full, to say the least, but I did get to give talks in my Boricua Spanish and the food is so great and the people so gracious and welcoming. We went to a Flamenco club and to a concert with the all too fabulous Vicente Amigo. That concert was one that I will remember always. It was beyond anything I could imagine hearing and being in Barcelona made it even more spectacular. On November 22, 2018, here was a remarkable concert tribute to Dexter at Luz de Gas with a band directed by Joan Chamorro. Here are the personnel in keeping with the rule of always naming the musicians in the band (Dexter’s rule).
Joan Chamorro, saxo tenor, baritone and double bass
Ignasi Terraza y Jan Domenech , piano
Ton Felices and Miquel Casanova, double bass
Abril Saurí, drums
Joan Marti, alto sax, tenor, soprano and flute
Joana Casanova, alto sax and voice
Marçal Perramon, tenor sax and clarinet
Èlia Bastida, tenor sax and violin
Alba Esteban, baritone sax and clarinet
Joan Mar Sauqué, trumpet
Victor Carrascosa, trumpet
Andrea Motis, trumpet and voice
Joan Codina, trombone
Rita Payés, trombone and voice
Joan Monné, repairs
There was a screening of the film Round Midnight at the Filmotek and a talk at the University and another one for a large group of high school students. After the talk with the students, in English, several of them invited me to a concert they were having in June 2019 in Esparreguera, a small town in Catalonia. I promised to go, and I kept that promise and it was extraordinary but not actually part of the Book Tour Saga. 9, 072 miles round trip with London included. November 19-24 Barcelona.
Vicente Amigo
On November 28, 2019, I flew to London for a book party at Honest Jon’s record shop on Portobello Road. This iconic record shop was there when Dexter arrived in 1962 to play at Ronnie Scott’s Club and when I was invited to sign books there by Alan Scholefield, I knew I needed to go. The party was great fun and the adorable and multi-talented Fiona Ross took some of the best photos of me and the book. I had afternoon tea with scones and clotted cream and my Paris family, the Wilkie-Doves came to make it perfect. Then I flew back to Barcelona to return to New York. To NYC November 30, 2018.
Photo by Fiona Ross
On Sunday, December 1, 2018, I started getting texts and calls telling me to get the Book Review section of the New York Times. There was a review of the book by David Hajdu. I went down the block and bought the Times and was nervous to read it, but I soon realized that I needed to go back and buy at least six copies because I had just gotten a rave review for the book. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/books/review/sophisticated-giant-dexter-maxine-gordon.html This is something that doesn’t often happen for a “Jazz book” published by an academic press. Needless to say, I was thrilled and shocked and proud.
On December 5, 2019, I took a train to Philadelphia and went to Uncle Bobbie’s Books, an independent Black-owned bookstore with Marc Lamont Hill as the founder. Farah Jasmine Griffin, who is from South Philly, met me there to talk about the book. Old friends from Philly were there and since I have spent so much time there, it felt like home. You can see my good friend Sandy Fuller in the photo below. After the talk, Farah and I went to the Amtrak station and took the train back to NYC, something we have done so many times that it feels natural to us. Thank you, Farah, thank you Uncle Bobbie’s. 189 miles round trip.
On December 9, 2018, I gave myself a book party at the Village Vanguard on a Sunday afternoon with food and music. I wanted to thank my editor, John Papanek, my friend Farah Jasmine Griffin for the Foreword, and I wanted to be where Dexter was when he came back from Europe and where he recorded Homecoming. I first went to the Vanguard when I was 15 years old and my life has so many great memories there, including the christening party given by Max Gordon for his Godson, my son Woody Louis Armstrong Shaw III, in 1978. The acclaimed actor Joe Morton read from the book (his is Dexter’s voice on the Audible book) as did Jasper McGruder and Todd Barkan. Michael Cuscuna was the MC. Deirdre Henry organized the event in her inimitable and perfect way. Friends rose to the occasion to help out as always--Thank you Johnetta Shearer and Diedra Harris-Kelley and Jed Eisenman. George Cables played with tenor players Joe Lovano, Antoine Roney, and J.D. Allen; Dezron Douglas on bass and Louis Hayes on drums. A Dexter tribute band for the ages. It was a very lively and beautiful event planned to say thank you to those who helped me finish the book.
Joe Morton
George Cables
Sascha Feinstein (Poet, Professor, and Editor of Brilliant Corners) wrote about the party in Jazziz Magazine (Spring 2019), p. 130.
“In early December 1976, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon performed at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard for a double-album titled Homecoming. Gordon had been living primarily in Europe since the early ’60s, and this concert signaled his return to the United States, where he would remain until his death in 1990. But in early December 2018, almost exactly 42 years after the Homecoming gig, Maxine Gordon, Dexter’s widow, organized a private gathering at the Vanguard that fully summoned his spirit.
Maxine’s event acknowledged her recent biography, Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon, but mainly she had invited people to celebrate her husband’s life through personal reflections and, of course, jazz. For the first half of the late-afternoon affair, people filled the renowned basement club to reunite with old friends and make new ones while Dexter’s classic Blue Note recordings graced the air. Then Maxine’s longtime friend and producer extraordinaire Michael Cuscuna took over as emcee and introduced a variety of speakers. Impresario Todd Barkan, who brightened the stand with his well-shined spats, told a humorous anecdote about a woman who tripped over Dexter’s foot and whom he managed to catch with his long arms. “My shoes may be dirty,” Dexter said as he cradled her, “but my soul is clean.” Two distinguished figures from stage and screen, Jasper McGruder and Joe Morton, read selections from Sophisticated Giant, including those that reflected Dexter’s sentimental delight for the 1940s, when, in his late teens and early 20s, he toured with prestigious bands led by Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong and Billy Eckstine. More than once, presenters replicated the tenor legend’s deliciously slow spoken delivery — “Suddenly … I heard … polka dots and … moonbeams” — and those who recognized the music of Gordon’s voice smiled every time.
Then Cuscuna introduced George Cables, the pianist from Dexter’s final, extraordinary quartet, who in turn introduced Louis Hayes, the drummer from the Homecoming album. (Both artists still perform at the highest level, and their presence energized the room all the more.) They were joined by Dezron Douglas on bass and, dueling it out on tenor saxophones, Antoine Roney and Joe Lovano. The quintet launched into a rendition of “Cheese Cake,” the up-tempo standard from Gordon’s 1962 album Go, and then Cables led the trio through a lush, reflective version of “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.” At that point, Roney’s phenomenally gifted 14-year-old son, Kojo, took over on drums, and the two tenors returned with a third, JD Allen, for “The Chase,” a tune made famous in 1947 by Dexter and Wardell Gray. No one played to cut the other, but they weren’t there to lose, either.
In jazz, imitation is not, in fact, the highest form of flattery, and none of the tenor players replicated Gordon’s phrasing or tone. Instead, as is customary in jazz, they played their own life stories. Still, Dexter’s spiritual presence was undeniable. There before us were Cables and Hayes, musicians who had recorded some of their best work with Gordon, and there was Maxine, aglow from the pleasure of friendships and throwing a wildly successful party. And there, in a Francis Wolff portrait taken in a 1963 photo shoot for the album Our Man in Paris, the image enlarged but crisp and placed behind the drum kit, was Dexter Gordon himself, leaning on a Parisian postbox as though mailing a love letter to us all.”
On December 13, 2018, I went to Washington, DC, for a screening of Round Midnight at the Library of Congress. I always love going there because Dexter’s Collection is housed there and I can do some research in it and also see the fabulous librarians in the Music Division. Mickey Schubert, the foremost authority on the Buffalo Soldiers and my entry into the research on Dexter’s Grandfather, and his wife Irene were there along with my D.C. friends and Dexter fans. 454 miles round trip.
On December 18, 2018, I had a book talk at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Diedra Harris-Kelley and my nephew Garnette Cadogan discussed the book with me. I saw a set of twins in the audience and recognized them as the Eliot twins from High School. I have not seen them for many years but, to me, they looked the same. We are back in touch now and I am happy to have found them again. After the talk, we went to an Indian restaurant which was very delicious. It’s amazing what a person remembers when going back to a day so long ago.
92nd Street Y, NYC
On December 19, 2018, I went to Newark, New Jersey, a place I have been going to for over 40 years because my son’s Grandmother, Rose Shaw, lives there. She came to my talk with her daughter Toni at Clement’s Place, the brilliant idea of Wayne Winborne, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Cam Scott, Gleb Wilson, and Jasper McGruder make the trip on NJ Transit with me. Cam and Gleb, the McNally Jackson booksellers, had never been to Newark before (Cam is from Winnepeg and Gleb doesn’t ordinarily cross rivers) and it was a very loud and hilarious moment for our group. Amy Niles read from the book and Wayne Winborne asked very smart questions, as he always does. After the talk, we went to the Tops Diner where, amazingly enough, they had something that Cam, the vegetarian, could eat. After a very big meal, we took NY Transit back home. The audience in Newark is always ready and they love the music and know their Jazz history. I went back to Newark twice more in 2019. Thank you, Wayne Winborne. Thank you, Jasper, Cam, and Gleb. 28 miles round trip.
Thus ends the book events for 2018. After a break, I went back on the book tour in January.