Boston Bernie is a jazz composition by Dexter Gordon, written in or before 1969. It is a contrafact, placing a new melody over the chord changes of Jerome Kern's 1939 standard All the Things You Are. Gordon composed the tune during a prolific period of original material in the late 1960s, amid Prestige Records sessions that also yielded compositions like Fried Bananas and Stanley the Steamer. The piece was first released in 1969 from Gordon's Prestige sessions, later compiled on The Complete Prestige Recordings, which includes both a primary take and an alternate take. Within Gordon's body of work, Boston Bernie exemplifies his practice of crafting contrafacts on proven standards, similar to his earlier I Want More, which is also based on the changes of All the Things You Are. The melody reflects Gordon's signature bebop phrasing over the familiar AABA harmonic structure, creating a mid-tempo swing vehicle well suited to small-group improvisation. The tune holds a modest but genuine place in the jazz repertoire as a deep cut rather than a widely performed standard, appreciated primarily by musicians familiar with Gordon's catalog. Notable later recordings include versions by the Don Braden-Wayne Escoffery quintet with Andy LaVerne, Steve LaSpina, and Billy Drummond from 2010, and by the Eric Ineke Jazzxpress from 2016. A live version also appears on Gordon's L.T.D: Live at the Left Bank, released in 2001 from earlier concert material.
