This Is Jazz 18
Columbia 1958-1974

col-58-74

jazz18

  1. Line For Lyons - Carnegie Hall Concert
  2. Festive Minor - What is There to Say?
  3. As Catch Can - What is There to Say?
  4. What is There to Say? - What is There to Say?
  5. You've Come Home - Jeru
  6. Bernie's Tune notes - Carnegie Hall Concert
  7. Utter Chaos - What is There to Say?
  8. My Funny Valentine - Carnegie Hall Concert
  9. Lullaby de Mexico notes - Brubeck at Berlin Philharmonie
1 = Chet Baker, Ron Carter, Bob James, Harvey Mason, Gerry Mulligan, David Samuels, John Scofield

November 24, 1974

Dave Bailey, Bill Crow, Art Farmer, Gerry Mulligan :
  • 2 & 4 - January 15, 1959
  • 3 - December 18, 1958
  • 7 - December 23, 1958
5 = Dave Bailey, Alec Dorsey, Tommy Flanagan, Gerry Mulligan, Ben Tucker

June 10, 1962

6 = Chet Baker, Ron Carter, Bob James, Harvey Mason, Gerry Mulligan, David Samuels,

November 24, 1974

8 = Chet Baker, Ron Carter, Harvey Mason, Gerry Mulligan

November 24, 1974

9 = Dave Brubeck, Alan Dawson, Gerry Mulligan, Jack Six

November, 1970

 LINER NOTES

In January 1996 jazz lost a gifted man of many parts when Gerry Mulligan died.A valuable player - and composer and arranger. In addition to being one of the finest and most influential of all baritone saxophonists (in his hands that cumbersome instrument took wing).

Mulligan (1927-1996) was a composer of sublime melodies, an inventive arranger, and an engaging soloist on clarinet, soprano saxophone, and piano. He broke into jazz's major leagues half a century ago when, as a teenager in Philadelphia, some of his arrangements and tunes were accepted by Gene Krupa. He also wrote for Elliot Lawrence and Claude Thornhill.

The Thornhill rchestra, whose dreamy, middle-register sound was in great measure shaped by the great arranger Gil Evans, was a model for what would become the Miles Davis nonets of 1948-50. Mulligan, along with such gifted young musicians as Lee Konitz, John Lewis, Max Roach and their mentor, Gil Evans, a key member of the ensembles that delivered Davis Birth Of The Cool

In the early 1950s in Los Angeles, Mulligan formed a quartet featuring a photogenic young trumpeter-vocalist named Chet Baker; with no piano to provide the chordal signposts, the pair weaved contrapuntal dialogues and improvisations that were, by turns, airy or nocturnal. They proved to be a cornerstone of "West Coast Jazz" (a term at which East Coaster Mulligan scoffed). The group, along with those of Dave Brubeck and Shorty Rogers were in the vanguard of this style.

Mulligan (a perennial poll-winner on baritone saxophone) and Baker reunited for a 1974 Carnegie Hall concert and although they hadn't worked together in years, their work on staples like "Line for Lyons," "Bernie's Tune," and, of course, "My Funny Valentine" (they're greatest hit) showed that they still had the right stuff - and that they swung harder than they had during their salad days. In trumpeter Art Farmer, he of the mellow tone on trumpet, Mulligan had another ideal frontline partner; their ensembles and solos bring the right amount of understatement to Mulligan originals like "Festive Minor" or ballads like Vernon Duke's "What Is There To Say?." Tommy Flanagan, among the most admired pianists of the past 35 years, lends his pearled touch to an overlooked Cy Coleman tune, "You've Come Home," taken from the long out-of-print album JERU.

And the baritonist is heard with pianist Dave Brubeck, his longtime friend and collaborator (Brubeck's group featured the baritonist in the late '60s and early '70s), on the set's dulcet finale, "Lullaby de Mexico."

In Farmer and Brubeck, Mulligan has colleagues who are as attuned to the nuances of improvisation as he was throughout his stellar career.

Throughout his prismatic musical life, whether leading groups small, medium or large, Gerry Mulligan was a master colorist. These small group performances bring to light his Cezanne-like senses of tone and shading. And, of course, his love for making music.

- James Isaacs (June 1996)