Book Event with Maxine Gordon
Date and Time
Nov 15, 2018 6:30 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Nov 15, 2018 6:30 pm
14th & V
Join Busboys and Poets as we welcome Maxine Gordon to discuss her new book Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon at our 14th and V location.
Sophisticated Giant presents the life and legacy of tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1923–1990), one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his “solo” turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. Reading like a jazz composition, the blend of research, anecdote, and a selection of Dexter’s personal letters reflects his colorful life and legendary times. It is clear why the celebrated trumpet genius Dizzy Gillespie said to Dexter, “Man, you ought to leave your karma to science.”
Dexter Gordon—the icon—is the Dexter who is now known and beloved and celebrated, on albums and on film and in jazz lore—even in a street named for him in Copenhagen. But this image of the cool jazzman fails to come to terms with the three-dimensional man full of humor and wisdom, a figure who struggled to reconcile being both a creative outsider who broke the rules and a comforting insider who was a son, father, husband, and world citizen. This essential book is an attempt to fill in the gaps, the gaps created by our misperceptions, but also the gaps left by Dexter himself. University of California Press, November 2, 2018
This event will be co-sponsored by JAZZforum. JAZZforum is a research and outreach initiative started in 2009. These regular events feature lively presentations on diverse aspects of jazz from writers, musicians, filmmakers, educators, and a wide range of scholars. www.jazzaliveudc.org
Maxine Gordon is an independent scholar with a lifetime career working with jazz musicians. As an oral historian and archivist in the fields of jazz and African American cultural history, her book, Sophisticated Giant, (University of California Press, 2018) fulfills the promise she made to her late husband, jazz saxophonist and Academy Award nominated actor Dexter Gordon, to complete his biography.
