Dexter Gordon
Tenor Sax Solo on
Fried Bananas

About

Dexter Gordon's tenor saxophone solo is the first of two improvisations on his own contrafact, which is based on the chord changes of "It Could Happen to You." Taking three choruses of the 32-bar ABAC form in E-flat at 179 BPM, Gordon navigates the familiar underlying harmony with the behind-the-beat phrasing and quotation-laced wit that defined his style. His newly composed melody transforms the standard's changes, and his improvisation further extends that transformation with three choruses of characteristically expansive tenor saxophone.

Dexter Gordon was 45 to 46 years old at the time.