1. Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are
2. Baubles, Bangles and Beads
3. Laura
4. Bweebida Bobbida
5. Utter Chaos
6. Open Country
7. Love In New Orleans
8. Four For Three
9. Subterranean Blues - "Olympia 1962"

 LINER NOTES

Perhaps this is as it should be. To be sure, Mulligan had made a prominent name for himself in jazz circles by the late 1940s, but it was the instantaneous success of the original Mulligan Quartet in 1952 that assured him of recognition at the national level. In fact the popularity of the group was so great, it comes as a mild shock to remember that the original quartet with Chet Baker was not an especially long-lived group. It was formed in the late summer of 1952 and was (involuntarily) disbanded the following summer. Nonetheless, Gerry returned again and again to the format throughout the fifties and into the early Sixties.

The second horn in the quartet was not a constant. When Mulligan returned to the music scene in 1954 following almost a year's hiatus, his front-line partner was valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, who would be a fixture in the group for most of the quartet's subsequent history. This is the group that made an international splash in Paris in June of 1954.

At first glance, the choice of trombone as an alternate horn for the quartet might seem strange. After all, the range and timbre of the trombone are rather similar to those of the baritone sax, while a trumpet would allow a much wider range for the quartet as a whole and, in addition, offer a much more effective contrast in coloring to the sax. One reason seems to have been simply that Bob Brookmeyer's personality matched that of Mulligan's to a high degree. Both revered their elders in the jazz world. It is a commonplace of jazz writing, in fact, to note that the rhythmic styles of both were more rooted in the swing era than in the bebop era, although both were firmly in the harmonic camp of modern jazz.

Another reason for the choice might be that Brookmeyer, paradoxically, offered more flexibility than any of the trumpet players that Mulligan would subsequently use, most notably Jon Eardley or Art Farmer. The valve trombone is usually thought of as being a rather staid and conservative relation of its slide cousin, but in Brookmeyer's hands, it could smear, slide, and growl with the best. In addition, Brookmeyer played piano in an individualistic style that matched Mulligan's own slightly quirky keyboard style. While neither might cause much sleeplessness on the part of, say, Oscar Peterson, both had a more than adequate command of the instrument. (Brookmeyer, as a matter of fact, had begun his professional career as a pianist.) More importantly, neither was afraid to explore some of the more esoteric elements of the instrument.

Bassist Bill Crow seconds this view, by the way. When asked why Brookmeyer was so often Mulligan's partner of choice, he responded in one word. "Musicianship." Crow then added, "Gerry valued [Brookmeyer] because of the way he could respond to any musical situation," and pointed out that Brookmeyer usually served as "straw boss" during rehearsals of the Concert Jazz Band.

Finally, with both of the front-line horns capable of doubling on piano, you could have either a pianoless quartet or a "conventional" quartet featuring either baritone sax or valve trombone. And while this album has no selections featuring Mulligan on piano, there is a fine example of Brookmeyer's work on that instrument.

The selections on this disc were recorded at two Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. The first, recorded at the Hollywood Bowl on August 27,1957, featured Joe Benjamin on bass and Dave Bailey on drums. The tunes were, by the time of the concert, all familiar staples in the quartet's repertoire. "Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are" and "Laura" had both been recorded at the legendary 1954 concert at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, while "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" and "Bweebida Bobbida" had been recorded the previous December at a live date in Boston's Storyville Club. "Come Out" swings at a slightly up tempo and features some exciting interplay (one might say a conversation) between Mulligan and Brookmeyer. "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," which keeps to a deliberate three, is-as Gerry points out in a spoken introduction-from the then-current Broadway show Kismet. (He might have also pointed out, but didn't, that the music in that show was based on themes by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.) "Laura" is taken in a bouncy two, rather than at the ballad tempo one might expect. The set wraps it up with "Bweebida Bobbida." The tune was one of Gerry's earlier compositions and is based on the familiar "I Got Rhythm" changes. The onomatopoetic title refers to the opening figure, which was inevitably scored for trombones in Mulligan's later big band arrangements.

The second set heard here, from a IATP European tour, was recorded in Paris, October 6,1962. This was during the years when Gerry's marvelous Concert Jazz Band still roamed the earth, and by now Mulligan and Brookmeyer-through many years of making music together in both combo and large band format-had developed an almost superhuman ability to read each other's mind. Bob Brookmeyer wrote "Open Country" and had recorded a version of it during his tenure with Stan Getz. Here his ever-fluid style is, if anything, even more sinuous than usual. "Love in New Orleans" and "Four for Three" are both Mulligan originals, and feature two disparate sides of his personality. "Love in New Orleans" displays Gerry's admiration and respect for the older forms of jazz. Taken at an easy lope, it sounds as if it could have been a staple of groups playing and recording several decades earlier. "Four for Three," on the other hand, features rhythms seemingly calculated to keep a musician slightly off balance, and the sinuous line certainly is not the kind that lays easily under a musician's fingers. Nonetheless, the musicians make it all sound as easy as a walk in the park.

Finally there is "Subterranean Blues," a performance that belies the often-heard slander that Mulligan and Brookmeyer were loath to take chances. The tune's title refers to a movie in which Gerry, in addition to playing on the soundtrack, appeared on screen in a minor role. The Subterraneans was based (quite loosely) on the lack Kerouac novel and the film's score, by Andre Previn, featured both the requisite large studio orchestra and a variety of jazz combos. Mulligan's sax was featured prominently in the orchestral sections, and he led one of the combos (which appeared briefly on screen) as well. One of the selections by the combo was a blues entitled "Things Are Looking Down," and the opening chorus of Gerry's recorded solo on that tune was later to be adapted by him as the nucleus of the theme on "Subterranean Blues." Gerry builds his solo by using stop-time rhythms in his first chorus, strolling through the second, and then doubling up on the third chorus.

It is on this tune that Bob Brookmeyer takes over the piano chair. "Takes over" is far from an idle description, by the way, for Brookmeyer's solo is indeed a revelation. He begins his solo with block chords and continues to build on a dissonant figure that on first hearing sounds arbitrary, but which eventually serves as a tool to unify the entire solo.

The performances heard here are hardly earthshaking, of course. After all, jazz has changed significantly in the nearly half century since they were recorded (albeit not always necessarily for the better). But what it comes down to, I would suggest, is that these are fine examples of the essence of jazz: music being spontaneously improvised and performed by masters of the medium. Certainly to any fan of Gerry Mulligan's, they're most welcome.

-Robert Gordon