Go! - Dexter Gordon

Recorded on August 27, 1962 at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Go! captures Dexter Gordon in the middle of a creative resurgence after personal struggles had limited his output through much of the 1950s. Produced by Alfred Lion for Blue Note Records, the session features Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums — the same quartet that would reconvene just two days later to record A Swingin' Affair. The album opens with Gordon's surging original "Cheese Cake" and moves through a program of standards that balances hard-swinging uptempo tracks like Cole Porter's "Love for Sale," driven by Higgins' clave-inflected groove, with ballads of striking tenderness, particularly "I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" and "Where Are You?" Gordon's tone is authoritative and unhurried throughout, his improvisations built on long, logically developed phrases that draw equally from bebop and the blues. AllMusic awarded the album five stars, and critics have consistently ranked it among Gordon's finest recordings. In 2019, the Library of Congress added Go! to the National Recording Registry, recognizing it as culturally and aesthetically significant.