Track list
When It's Sleepy Time Down South
The Peanut Vendor
Struttin' with Some Barbeque
Up a Lazy River
I'll Be Glad when You're Dead
Rockin' Chair
St. Louis Blues
A Kiss to Build a Dream on
Swing That Music
Black and Blue
Just a Closer Walk with Thee
What a Wonderful World
Philosophy of Life

"An occasion to appreciate Dexter's resounding musical genius as well as his wish for major social transformation."-Angela Y. Davis, political activist, scholar, author, and speaker 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 beloved and celebrated on albums, 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 multidimensional 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 created by our misperceptions as well as the gaps left by Dexter himself.

Louis Daniel Armstrong was born in August 1901 (yet he always claimed to be born on the 4th of July) and is probably the most famous Jazz musician of the 20th Century. He achieved fame as a trumpeter but it was his unique voice and gentlemanly manner that endeared him to the general public. His biggest selling record "Hello Dolly" was released in 1964 and topped the pop charts around the world making him the oldest person ever to have hit the top, at 63! Watch these performances of Armstrong throughout different times in his career and admire his unique talent. See him perform "Hello Dolly", among many others on this brilliant collection then sit back and listen to his distinctive voice in the collection of audio tracks. This set really is the definitive Louis Armstrong!

"In all my whole career the Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in. It was the honky-tonk where levee workers would congregate every Saturday night and trade with the gals who'd stroll up and down the floor and the bar. Those guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy, and there was lots of just plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all, I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn." So says Louis Armstrong, a tough kid who just happened to be a musical genius, about one of the places where he performed and grew up. This raucous, rich tale of his early days in New Orleans concludes with his departure to Chicago at twenty-one to play with his boyhood idol King Oliver, and tells the story of a life that began, mythically, on July 4, 1900, in the city that sowed the seeds of jazz.

Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier star as two American ex-pat jazz musicians struggling for success in Paris in this 1960s US drama. Trombone player Ram Bowen and saxophonist Eddie Cook (Newman and Poitier) moved to the French capital for its love of jazz and its liberal acceptance of black people, in contrast to their own country's hostile attitudes. When the pair fall in love with Americans tourists Connie and Lillian (Diahann Carroll and Joanne Woodward), Ram and Eddie are forced to decide whether to move back home with them or stay in Paris.