Dexter Gordon Doin' Allright on XRCD

Mastered from Rudy Van Gelder's Original Blue Note Two-Track Master Tapes by Joe Harley and Alan Yoshida at OceanWay Mastering.

Hands-Down the Best-Sounding CDs on the Market: Phenomenal Sonics

1961 Effort Finds Gordon Pairing With Horace Parlan and Freddie Hubbard to Make Jazz History

Dexter Gordon always played with a melancholy smile in his sound. The joy he felt in playing his tenor saxophone was apparent, as was his huge tone and playful conception. At the time that he recorded Doin' Allright, his very first Blue Note album, he had a reason to be smiling. Gordon was making a major comeback after spending several years in prison on a narcotics conviction. After being one of the primary pacesetters among tenors during the bebop era, he had been largely forgotten in the 1950s due to several other periods of involuntary incarceration. But after the release of this 1961 album with the young trumpet sensation Freddie Hubbard and the Horace Parlan Trio, Gordon made a permanent mark that remains today, almost 50 years later.

Just listen to him caressing "You've Changed," introducing "Society Red" (which 15 years later would be used in his famous film Round Midnight) and sounding jubilant on "I Was Doing All Right." Gordon was feeling joyful, healthy, and content to let every note tell the story. Doin' Allright is Dexter Gordon creating music for the ages!

In handling one of jazz's all-time best-sounding recordings, Rudy Van Gelder's original Blue Note two-track analog tapes were meticulously mastered to XRCD by engineer Alan Yoshida and producer Joe Harley. This XRCD comes with deluxe hardbound book-style packaging with original liner notes and high resolution B&W session photos. The package alone is worth the investment. This edition of Doin' Allright represents the highest-quality analog to digital transfers from tape to CD available, and is among the finest digital releases you will ever hear.

"...thanks to the XRCD process and the care that was taken transferring these albums directly from the original analog masters, these CDs have to be approaching the limit of what the compact disc is capable of resolving. Instrument timbre is stunningly real, and the amount of air and decay present on these recordings will make the uninitiated swear that there is a record playing on a turntable somewhere. I’ve never heard this music sound this good in any digital format."
-Jeff Dorgay, TONE Audio, Issue 26

“At $30 a pop, these XRCDs are expensive, although not as pricey as the same $50 vinyl sets! And while they may not equal the breathtaking sonics of the vinyl discs, they come very close. So close, in fact, that during one of my listening sessions I was prepared to get up and flip the LP to Side 2 – except I wasn’t listening to an LP but to an Alan Yoshida-mastered XRCD!”
- Wayne Garcia, The Absolute Sound, June/July 2010
 
“JVC has examined the each step in XRCD CD mastering and manufacturing processes and designed specific equipment to improve those processes. Every combination of equipment, connections, AC power regulation, clocking, mastering format, and compact disc construction was evaluated technically and by listening tests.”
- Robert Harley, The Absolute Sound, June/July 2010 

Dexter Gordon Doin' Allright Track Listing:

1. I Was Doing All Right
2. You've Changed
3. For Regulars Only
4. Society Red
5. It's You Or No One
6. I Want More