Bobby Gordon (June 29, 1941- December 31, 2013) was an American clarinetist.
Robert Cameron Gordon was born in Manhasset, New York, in 1941. Happily for him, his father worked for RCA and sold Tommy Dorsey records for them also running a nightclub in Hartford, the Paddock, where 1940s celebrities like Joe Marsala went.
Bobby was raised near Long Island where he was a student of Joe Marsala ("He also taught me how to practice to achieve a beautiful tone by starting on low E and playing long notes"). Marsala told him, "Try to play like Bobby Hackett (his phrasing, his feel for chord changes) but with my tone". In 1957, Bobby won a scholarship to the Lenox School of Jazz in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, and continued his studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. It was in 1960, with his family, that he moved to Chicago. He started playing Plugged Nickel there with banjo player Eddy Davis. From 1961, he recorded with Little Brother Montgomery.
Between 1960 and 1963, he recorded three albums for the Dot label, during which time he played folk music and traditional jazz. He also played intermittently with Muggsy Spanier, notably in Toronto. One opportunity that didn’t materialize was his replacing Buster Bailey in the Louis Armstrong All Stars in 1968. Bobby remembers being measured for the band uniform and learning the repertoire. But Louis suffered a heart attack, “and I never got to play with him.”
Bobby then conducted orchestras at the Jazz Ltd club, as well as at the London House in Chicago (in trio with Marty Grosz). He moved to Ryan's in New York with Max Kaminsky and recorded with Zutty Singleton and Danny Barker. In 1973 he was hired by Jim Cullum Jr. In 1977, he lived in New York and performed at Condon's for three years (with Bobby Hackett, Wild Bill Davison). For eight years he worked for Leon Redbone. It was then that he settled in San Diego where he met his English-born wife, Sue.
Here’s “Blue Clarinet” from above Album.
Around 1988, he also started playing with the Orphean Newsboys of Peter Ecklund and Marty Grosz. He recorded for cornetist Chris Tyle alongside fellow Pee Wee Russell disciple Frank Powers (1988). Bobby has led a quartet at Milligan’s Bar and Grill in La Jolla, CA since 1992. In 1993 Bobby Gordon conducted an orchestra that included Joe Marsala's widow, on the album Music From the Mauve Decades, where you’ll find the best of Bobby Gordon's sound quality is preserved.
In May of 1995 and 1996 Bobby made appearances in Japan with Marty Grosz and the Orphan Newsboys, and at Lincoln Center in New York in July of 1996. In 2000 he accompanied Rebecca Kilgore.
He produced the album Pee Wee's Song: The Music of Pee Wee Russell in April 2007 and also Bobby Gordon Plays Joe Marsala- Lower Regiter, this time with notably Ingham, Randy Reinhart , James Chirillo and Vince Giordano. Around 2010, he performed in Barcelona with the young Andrea Motis. As a singer, he is reminiscent of Little Brother Montgomery. Bobby Gordon has particularly worked on the low register and the delicacy that has made him considered "one of the great poets of jazz".
Gordon had been in poor health in his later years but occasionally performed at jazz parties and festivals. He died of cardiopulmonary arrest on December 31, 2013 at a skilled nursing facility in San Diego. The Pacific Beach resident was 72.
(Edited from Wikipedia, JazzHot, Jazz Lives & the San Diego Union Tribune)