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Title: Dexter Gordon mesmerizes with his music and his acting
Review: For a non-actor musician, Dexter can show a lot of A-list actors a thing or two. Unlike Hollywood movies featuring a well-known jazz musician, this one delivers the real thing, music-wise, with no fading the music and cutting to the main characters dining and talking. But the writing is a little tedious at times, making the actors say some corny, self-conscious lines, as if explaining and talking down to an audience that's never heard any jazz before. Dexter's character, Dale Turner the celebrated tenor sax player and alcoholic, is subjected to some unnecessary humiliation to sledge-hammer home the message that if he goes back to the bottle, it's curtains for him. And some silly, unreal and unnecessary minor characters, added merely for color. However, the movie is satisfying as the story of one American jazz musician among the many that were drawn to Paris, where nobody noticed the color of their skin.
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