Arts and Literature Laboratory and Wisconsin Book Festival will present a discussion with Maxine Gordon about her forthcoming book, Quartette: Stories from the Lives of Four Women Jazz Musicians, on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, 10:30am, at the Sequoya Library, 4340 Tokay Boulevard. In addition to her research on jazz history, Gordon is also the widow and biographer of the legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1923-1990), and her visit to Madison is in conjunciton with DEX100, a centennial celebration of his life and music.
The full title of Gordon's forthcoming book, expected in 2025, is Quartette: Stories from the Lives of Four Women Jazz Musicians - Maxine Sullivan, Velma Middleton, Melba Liston, and Shirley Scott. The project will give voice to four Jazz musicians who can inspire the future and inform the study of the past. Archival research searching interviews and recordings will be pursued in order to incorporate the artists’ voices in the work.
Maxine Gordon is an independent scholar with a lifetime career working with Jazz musicians. As an oral historian and archivist in the fields of Jazz and African American cultural history, her book, Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon (University of California Press, 2018) fulfills the promise she made to her late husband, Jazz saxophonist and Academy Award nominated actor Dexter Gordon, to complete his biography.
