Download or read book Sophisticated Giant written by Maxine Gordon and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon was one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his "solo" turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. She shows that his image of the cool jazzman fails to come to terms with the three-dimensional man full of humor and wisdom, a figure who struggled to reconcile being both a creative outsider who broke the rules and a comforting insider who was a son, father, husband, and world citizen. --