1. Tiny's Blues
2. I Cover The Waterfront/I'm In The Mood For Love
3. Out Of Nowhere
4. Our Delight
5. Lullaby Of The Leaves
6. Blues
7. Everything Happens To Me - Here Is "
8. Bernie's Tune

3-6 = Joe Mondragon, Gerry Mulligan, Howard Roberts, Jimmy Rowles, Tommy Rundell
May 27, 1952

7-8 = Unknown Orchestra March 13, 1955

 LINER NOTES

Played with Miles Davis Nonet at Royal Roost, wrote arrangements which were recorded for Capitol. Played and arranged for Elliot Lawrence, Claude Thornhill 1950-51. Moved to California in 1952 and formed a pianoless quartet with Chet Baker. Rose to national prominence with this combo, later sideman included Bob Brookmeyer (vtb), Jon Eardley (tp) Red Mitchell (b). Formed a sextet in 1955 with Art Farmer, was heard and seen in the films "I Want to Live" and "The Subterraneans". In 1960 he formed a 13 piece big band which he called the Concert Jazz Band.

After it disbanded he became an active sideman, working often with Dave Brubeck (1968-72) and as a freelance arranger for other jazz groups. He formed a new 14-piece big band, the Age of Steam, in 1972, and was artist-in-residence at Miami University in 1974. From 1974 to 1977 Mulligan led a sextet that included Dave Samuels, and during this period he worked regularly in New York and Italy; around the same time he began playing soprano saxophone. He formed a 14-piece band in 1978, and toured with it into the following year. During the early 1980s he made recordings as a leader in New York that involved experiments with a 20-piece big band (1980) and electronic instruments (1982-3), but in 1986 he returned to a more familiar format as the leader of a quintet with Scott Hamilton and Crady Tate.

Mulligan is among the most versatile figures in modern jazz. Although slow to develop as an instrumentalist, he has long been recognized as the most important baritone saxophonist in jazz since Harry Carney. Besides the cool idiom which he helped to create, he is equally at home in a big-band, bop, or even dixieland context (playing clarinet in the last), and his excellent recordings with musicians as varied as Johnny Hodges and Thelonious Monk show an unusual musical adaptability.

Initially, however, Mulligan made his reputation as an arranger of band scores with intricate inner parts, careful balancing of timbres, low dynamics, and light swing. Later he abstracted these qualities in his pianoless groups, where the low volume and absence of chordal underpinnings freed the wind players to improvise in delicate two-part counterpoint.

In recent years a lot of "bootleg"- LPs have been issued with recordings made privately mostly in now defunct jazz-clubs. From the "Royal Roost", "Birdland", even Carnegie Hall we have recordings documenting the East Coast jazz-scene with groups whose musicians never played together on regular records.

On the contrary the west coast jazz-scene, mainly Los Angeles, has been documented very scarcely. These titles, mostly recorded at "The Haig" on May 27,1952, include a real rarity: Gerry Mulligan playing tenor sax besides his main instrument, the baritone. The other tenorist is Dave Pell and on piano is Paul Smith. On bass is Joe Mandragon, while trumpeter Ted Ottison and drummer Billy Wilson are unknown names even to experts. "Tiny's Blues", written by the late Tiny Kahn, introduces both tenor players, Mulligan being the first soloist. The following ballad medley features Mulligan again on tenor in "I cover the waterfront" while it is Paul Smith on "I'm in the mood for love". On side 2 Mulligan plays his main instrument, accompanied by Jimmy Rowles, "One of the unsung greats" as Zoot Sims called him, on piano, Howard Roberts on guitar, Joe Mandragon again on bass and another unknown name, Tommy Rundell on drums.

An unknown trumpeter plays on "Lullaby of the leaves" at the end of "Blues" two trumpeters can be heard, one of them possibly being Ottison.