Dexter Gordon on John Coltrane

When asked about Coltrane, Dexter recalled, "I think he was a fantastic saxophonist and musician. In fact, the mouthpiece that Trane was playing, I gave it to him. When he came out to Hollywood with Miles in 1957, he was playing fantastic but he didn't have "that sound" and he would play all that music, all the notes....but he didn't have his sound, so I said: 'Man, you need a new mouthpiece,' So I gave him one of mine - that was what he was using. So that was the way he could get that "Dexter sound"... And the other way around. When I recorded Body and Soul [on The Panther in 1970], I was thinking of Coltrane's version, the modal way he did it." Many years later, Dexter commented jokingly that if he had kept that mouthpiece, he might have sounded as good as Trane. --(Maxine Gordon 2008)