"Boston Bernie" from Dexter Gordon's 1969 album More Power! is another of Gordon's contrafact compositions, this one built on the chord changes of the Jerome Kern standard "All the Things You Are." Set in A-flat major with an AABA form spanning 36 bars at 181 BPM, the track features three tenor saxophone choruses from Gordon and two piano choruses from Barry Harris. Gordon's new melody cleverly disguises the underlying harmony while retaining the rich modulatory character of Kern's original changes. His improvised solo demonstrates his mastery of this challenging harmonic structure, navigating the key changes with the ease of a musician who had spent decades internalizing the bebop vocabulary. Harris, whose deep knowledge of bebop harmony was legendary, contributes a solo that reveals subtle aspects of the chord progression that other pianists might overlook. The session captured on More Power! finds Gordon in a particularly creative mood, and his original compositions on the album stand alongside his interpretations of standards as vehicles for inspired improvisation. The contrafact tradition, a cornerstone of bebop practice since the 1940s, is honored here with a composition that merits attention in its own right.
