1. Soft Lights and Sweet Music
2. Gone
3. Do You Know What I See
4. I've Just Seen Her
5. Noblesse
6. Ghosts
7. Port of Baltimore Blues

January, 1986

 LINER NOTES

In the forties, Mulligan wrote big band arrangements for Gene Krupa which still sound fresh and was an essential member of the Miles Davis-Gil Evans circle in New York that produced the classic "Birth of the Cool" sessions. He must have been one of those charged young men everyone else can recognize as something special, on the way to a unique destiny. He arrived in California in the early fifties and established an innovative pianoless quartet just in time for everyone to claim him as a leading figure in "West Coast Jazz." I often wonder what he made of that. When he hit upon the fleet, nimble sound of his first quartet, I don't suppose he was thlinking about geography. The music of that band just danced. Mulligan played the baritone as if the big, heavy horn presented no natural obstacles, which was startling in itself, and his and Chet Baker's solos flashed out at you from a moving background - the band filled the sonic hole usually occupied by a piano with weaving background countermelodies, hovering spaces, vocal lines, harmonic interjections that instantly created linear direction. It was music that supplied its own original ethos as it went along, and it found the success it deserved.

The various groups Mulligan has led since then expanded his original vision while keeping its values intact. He formed his first-rate sidemen-Bob Brookmeyer, Zoot Sims, Art Farmer - into quartets, sextets, tentets and Concert jazz Bands in which coherence and a kind of crisp thoughtfulness were informed with Mulligan's passionate pleasure in making jazz.

Along the way he now and then paused for studio encounters with some of jazz's noblest players. He was smart enough not to confine himself to encounters with musicians of his own style or generation (though these days, his generation seems to have been particularly rich in talent.) Besides recording with Stan Getz and Paul Desmond, he "met" Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, and Thelonious Monk. All of these records are demonstrations of Mulligan's strengths. His unfailing sense of direction, his tuneful originals, and his ability to keep the pot boiling evoked brilliant playing from his guests. Soft Lights and Sweet Music is a welcome return to this aspect of his musical life, and Scott Hamilton was a perfect choice for the other horn. Like Mulligan, Hamilton cannot resist rising to a challenge, and his playing here is some of his best on record. Maybe it's the Mulligan connection, but for me the warmth and joyousness of Scott's solos, especially on Do You Know What I See? and Noblesse are full of echoes of Zoot Sims.

Mulligan always produced a handful of engaging new songs for these sessions, and here we have five more contributions to his library. Do You Know What I See? has the sound of a classic Mulligan tune like "Walking Shoes" or "Venus De Milo," and Noblesse is one of his best ballads ever. Mulligan is a natural melodist, and his ballads shimmer. Scott Hamilton gives a wholly involved, attentive reading of Noblesse's initial statement, turning it over meditatively and opening the way for Mulligan to expose the deep feeling just under the pretty notes. The blues jump and swing as if Baltimore were a suburb of Kansas City, and Scott levitates Irving Berlin's Soft Lights and Sweet Music from the first bar and effortlessly accomplishes one of jazz's essential miracles, that of transcending the melody by the simple act of playing it.

Mulligan exercised his usual care when he selected his rhythm section. Mike Renzi's experience with Mel Torme shows in his supportive comping, and Jay Leonhart is one

It's a real pleasure to see this latest chapter in the continuing adventures of Gerry Mulligan come to us through the courtesy of Concord Records and Carl Jefferson, its, genial overlord. Jefferson has been quietly building the most impressive mainstream jazz catalogue of the decade, and one yardstick by which to measure his success is how thoroughly Gerry Mulligan could express himself throughout Soft Lights and Sweet Music. I hope a lot more music is to come from their partnership.

-PETER STRAUB