Dexter Gordon: Autumn in New York

During the 1950s, Dexter Gordon spent most of his time behind bars, and not the kind where drinks are served. Busted for heroin possession, Gordon appeared with other actual inmates in a Hollywood prison flick, Unchained (1955). Adding insult to injury, his sax was dubbed on the soundtrack by an anonymous studio musician. Upon his release, as if in revenge, Dexter recorded one of his most relaxed, self-assured sessions. And nobody dubbed his sinewy but sensuous sax. "If I had the wings of an angel," jailbirds have forever daydreamed, "over these prison walls I would fly." Dexter had wings.