In a perfect world, had things not gone all possession, penitentiary and parole boards, the 1950s could have been Dexter Gordon’s decade. The great swing-to-bop tenorman already had a clutch of well-loved 78rpms to his name on the Savoy and Dial labels, including the defining ‘The Chase’ shared with fellow West Coast trailblazer Wardell Gray, and his style had helped shape those of young contenders like Sonny Rollins, but sadly the dawn of the 12” LP era granted him just two opportunities before arrest and conviction once more curtailed his career; this album and the similarly iconic Blows Hot and Cool on the Dootone label, both cut in 1955.

Daddy Plays The Horn is the best of this brace, mainly because Long Tall Dexter gets to stretch his musical limbs minus a front-line partner. The result is a classic, every perpendicular inch the equal of those famed Blue Notes from the following decade.

Another reason for the album’s success is its rhythm section – three transplanted beboppers then finding California an attractive alternative to the Big Apple. And there’s the recorded sound – bright, open, less ‘produced’ than its allegedly superior East Coast alternative. Howard Stabin’s now-iconic sleeve art helps too.

Yet for all this – Drew’s Powellesque lines, the airy audio, the cool cartoon cover – the real action is with Dexter himself, languid and Lester-like on the title track, showing his bop chops on ‘Confirmation’, and on ‘Darn That Dream’ and ‘Autumn In New York’ offering up two drawn out ballad readings full of his characteristic slow-motion lyricism. If Gordon had been around to offer more of this sort of thing in the latter half of the 1950s his would have been an interesting counterweight to the emerging Coltrane school. History however, had the last laugh; in his absence Coltrane drew heavily on the older man’s message in formulating his own approach, in effect creating a proxy line of succession.

If you only know Dexter from his 1960s output, Round Midnight or that ubiquitous noirish Herman Leonard photograph, check this out. Serious music in a comic cover, this LP is a faithful facsimile of the real deal.