There was so much love and elation; sometimes it was a little eerie at the Vanguard. After the last set they’d turn on the lights and nobody would move.
Dexter GordonOn his homecoming at the Village Vanguard, 1976; quoted in Dale Chapman, The Jazz Bubble, 2018
Dexter would get up to the microphone, holding his horn horizontally, and he’d say ‘You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.’ It was a little bit of a shtick, but it was how he approached a song, and I remember that.
Dave Bass, pianistMarcus Crowder, There’s no resting for pianist Dave Bass, McClatchy, 24 June 2011
Your tone, your sound is inside of you. You hear it before you produce it. The real ingredient of the sound is within the individual—the way he hears things.
Dexter GordonInterview with Les Tomkins, Jazz Professional, 1962
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