JERU

  1. Capricious - Kicks!
  2. Here I'll Stay
  3. Inside Impromptu notes
  4. You've Come Home notes
  5. Get Out Of Town notes - Kicks!
  6. Blue Boy notes
  7. Lonely Town
  • Tommy Flanagan
  • Ben Tucker
  • Dave Bailey
  • Alec Dorsey
June, 1962
jeru jeru_cd kicks

 LINER NOTES

Some artists are so unusual in their approach that the only new avenue thay may take is one which has been previously traveled by nearly everyone else. Take, for instance gerry Mulligan. Standard operating procedure for saxophonists is to make an album with a regular rhythm section: piano, bass and drums. But in Gerry Mulligan's long career, this is the one thing he has done most rarely. There was one previous collection with this format, made unusual and exceptional because the pianist was Thelonious Monk, and the set therefore represented something of a summit meeting. And in the regular Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Bob Brookmeyer would sometimes lay down his trombone and play piano behind Mulligan for one song on an album. But with those exceptions, Mulligan had never before recorded with piano without the presence of other soloists.

Although Mulligan had previously contributed to such striking jazz advances as the Miles Davis ninepiece band, it was, of course, the quartet be formed with trumpeter Chet Baker in the early Fifties that brought him his first great public acceptance. And the striking feature of that quartet was the absence of a piano."His central idea," the French critic Andre Hodeir has written, "was to highlight a very small number of melodic parts by suppressing all harmonic commentary." And that basic idea, the concentration of melody and counterpoint through the suppression of harmony, has overshadowed everything else Mulligan has done.

While Mulligan was doing his work, most other saxophonists were busy recording with standard rhythm sections. And, in the late Fifties, as the line between jazz and rhythm-and-blues became harder to define, many saxophonists took to adding a conga drum to the rhythm section, sometimes with telling effect, more often arbitrarily. Thus, after having made many striking innovations of his own, Mulligan turned to a performance practice that has been done nearly to death by inferior players.

None of these things were on Mulligan's mind when he made this recording. His own concerns were much simpler. Dave Bailey, who plays drums on this set, is a close friend of Mulligan's and was, for a long time, a member of his quartet. Bailey's contention was simply that Mulligan did not play enough ballads. He wanted to produce a record that would point up that aspect of his former employer's talent. This album is the result.

Besides Mulligan and, Bailey, the personnel includes bassist Ben Tucker, an impressive mainstay of several East Coast recording sessions, conga drummer Alec Dorsey and pianist Tommy Flanagan. Flanagan, another friend of Mulligan's, is a pianist whose work is a precise definition of the term "good taste." Unobtrusive in accompaniment, delightful in solo, he is a perfect complement to Mulligan.

The material, chosen by mutual consent of the players, comes from a wide variety of sources. The bossa nova "Capricious" and the lazy, insinuating "Inside Impromptu" come from composer-pianistjazz disc jockey Billy Taylor, who is, aside from his other talents, one of the most pointedly acute observers of the jazz scene. The immediately affecting "You've Come Home," which seems to strip showtune construction to its basics, is by pianist Cy Coleman, composer of "Witchcraft." "Here I'll Stay" is a lovely, inexplicably neglected song by the great Kurt Weill, for whose work Mulligan has a particular affinity. "Get Out of Town," now a classic, is by Cole Porter. "Lonely Town" is one of the most enduring numbers from On the Town, which launched that mighty combination of Leonard Bernstein, Adolph Green, Betty Comden and Jerome Robbins. And, finally, there is Mulligan's own "Blue Boy," a wry commentary on the superfunk which often appears when saxophone player meets conga drummer.

The album reflects Mulligan's professionalism, and his essentially happy view of music. It is immediately apparent that the record was made by men who get along well together; it sounds like an amiable conversation among friends. Dave Bailey, who felt that there were many moods Mulligan could express musically that he had too seldom essayed in public, designed the set to display those moods, and could not be more pleased with the results. "The album could really be called 'Compatibility,' " be says, "because that's the one word that best describes it."

It is, however, called "Jeru," a name which Miles Davis gave Gerry Mulligan a long time ago. Under any name, the warmth and musicianship are more than evident.