© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
The following is excerpted from Peter Welding’s booklet Notes to The Complete Pacific Jazz and Capitol Recordings of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and Tentette with Chet Baker, Mosaic Records [MR 5-102].
I think they are especially helpful for the description they provide of what made the sound of the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet [1952-53] so unique.
Focusing on its instrumentation and Mulligan's talent in using harmonic voicing, Welding literally offers a step-by-step or piece-by-piece or element-combined-with-element explanation of how the quartet’s unique sonority or texture was produced.
© Copyright ® Mosaic Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with permission.
“In the early autumn of 1952 Gerry Mulligan burst onto the national jazz scene as leader of an interesting new quartet that not only gained immediate popular acceptance but garnered universal praise from the jazz critical fraternity as well, no mean feat given the latter's equation of popularity with artistic compromise. But, it must be remembered that in the sunnier times of the early '50s it was possible for a jazz artist to achieve wide popular success without in any way selling, or being accused of selling his art short. Certainly this was the case with Mulligan and his music. From the start, the quartet he headed up was hailed for the freshness and originality of its conception, the distinctiveness of its ensemble sound and, not least, the improvisations! abilities of its members. Chief of these were Mulligan himself, the individuality and mature power of whose baritone saxophone playing was widely commented on, and Chet Baker, a hitherto unknown young trumpeter whose warm gently lyrical style, introspective and occasionally tentative sounding, contrasted perfectly with Mulligan's gruff, extroverted approach. Not exactly polar opposites. mind you — Baker could turn up the heat when the occasion called for it, and Mulligan had his rhapsodic side — but temperamentally the two were just dissimilar enough to produce sparks when they performed together. Happily, they continued to do so throughout the term of their year-iong association, which fact is handily documented in the 63 performances that have been brought together here and which comprise the recorded minutes of their remarkable collaboration
Make no mistake: Mulligan's was a remarkable, even a phenomenal group. It was the Mulligan quartet that, among other accomplishments signaled the arrival of what subsequently became known as "West Coast Jazz"— although Gerry always bridled at the term, and not without some justification — as a musical movement of wide popularity made Mulligan into something of a media celebrity, launched the career of Chet Baker the group's original trumpet player, and was responsible for establishing the fledgling Pacific Jazz Records operation.
These factors aside, the group's place in jazz history is based on other considerations, chief of which was its restoration to the jazz vocabulary of a type of buoyant heterophonic interplay that largely had been absent from the music for well more than a decade, involving a use of front-line instruments that was much more typical of early jazz practice but which, as expressed by Mulligan and Baker, not only was totally in keeping with the melodic-harmonic character of post-bop mainstream jazz but accessible to large numbers of listeners as well. This stemmed from the group's, for the time, unorthodox instrumentation of two horns, bass and drums. The absence of a chord-feeding instrument such as piano or guitar led to Mulligan's developing a number of ensemble practices that were somewhat at variance with those of conventional small group jazz of the time. The intelligence and imagination with which he addressed himself to this challenge resulted not only in the distinctive, immensely satisfying — and still rewarding — sound of his own quartet but introduced to jazz a number of techniques that have expanded its expressive means, being used to this day
In his arrangements for the quartet — and this includes spontaneous as well as written or other prepared arrangements — Mulligan exploited to the fullest all the resources of two and occasionally three-voice linear writing, using Baker's trumpet, his baritone saxophone and often the bass as well, m every combination he could think of — harmonized, in unison, contrapuntally and antiphonally, often within the space of a single performance - creating a mobile play of movement and color that was all the more remarkable for having initially been developed spontaneously, in the very act of playing itself. Just how well he succeeded can be heard in every one of the selections in this collection. One aspect of the group's music was widely commented on at the time — its omission of piano, which distinguished the quartet from virtually all other small groups of the period. In fact, so much was made of this aspect of the Mulligan quartet's music that other, far more interesting and important elements were glossed over in the almost exclusive emphasis given the "pianoless" aspect in reportage and reviews of the band
As a journalistic handle, this was of course understandable but in and of itself there was little that was truly noteworthy about Mulligan's having omitted piano in the quartet's instrumentation. Numerous groups throughout jazz history had performed without the instrument, particularly in the music's early years. And just a dozen years before Mulligan put his group together Sidney Bechet and Muggsy Spanier had led a stunning, critically acclaimed pianoless quartet (they did have Carmen Mastren on guitar. however) built around the exciting heterophonic interplay of the leaders soprano saxophone and cornet which had anticipated that of Mulligan and Baker, although couched of course in a far different stylistic language than the more modem idiom of the latter two. In this connection, mention should also be made of the Kansas City Six recordings of 1938 and '39, which found Lester Young's tenor saxophone and clarinet and Buck Clayton's trumpet unassisted by piano, although again harmonic support was provided by Freddy Green's spruce rhythm guitar
A sometime piano player himself Mulligan typically, had cogent reasons for dispensing with the instrument. For as he explained. 'The piano is an orchestra and as such naturally offers many wonderful possibilities, both as a solo instrument and also in conjunction with an ensemble. However, its use with the rhythm section, where its function is to 'feed' the chords of the progression to the soloist, has placed the piano in a rather uncreative and somewhat mechanical role. By eliminating this role from the piano in my group, I actually open whole new fields of exploration and possibilities when I do choose to use one. As for myself, I just don't consider the piano an indispensable part of the rhythm section. I think it is more habit than logic that it is accepted standard practice to use the piano thusly."
So. what was most notable about the Mulligan quartet was not the omission of piano so much as the music produced in response to its absence, as wei! as the greater imaginative freedom it allowed the players. Dispensing with it, however, did represent a deliberate choice on Mulligan's part and, to give him his due, it was an audacious idea for the early 1950s and for this reason probably was worthy of comment. Certainly it had the effect of focusing a great deal of attention on the quartet, contributing not inconsiderably to the popular success it so quickly achieved. "An additional benefit," Nat Hentoff observed, "was that it stimulated listeners to hear more sensitively, more sophisticatedly. The pianist, after all, had served as chordal road mapper for the listeners as well as the players. With the pianist gone, it was instructive, and at times rather exhilarating, to realize how far you, the listener, could stretch your own ears as you were drawn into the Mulligan microcosm. And once they were stretched, they stayed that way, It has not often been remarked, but I think the Mulligan quartet provided invaluable ear training to a lot of listeners who went on to be able to enjoy other groups — including those with piano — much more knowledgeably than they had previously.’
As charted in the performances compiled here however, piano was available to Mulligan at various stages of the quartet's evolution, as were capable players The very earliest Mulligan quartet performances, including several recorded examples, reflected its initial use of keyboard, for it took some time for the group's final instrumentation and approach to take shape. Following a period of weekend performing at bassist Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, the baritone saxophonist in the Spring of 1952 had secured the regular Monday night job at The Haig, a small jazz club located on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. There he performed with a rotating group of musicians that included at various times trumpeter Ernie Royal, pianists Jimmy Rowles and Fred Otis, bassists Joe Comfort, Red Mitchell and Joe Mondragon, and drummers Alvin Stoller and Chico Hamilton, among others.
It was here, on the stage of The Haig, that the Mulligan quartet was born.
"The quartet's recording history had its beginnings on the afternoon of June 10th, 1952, in Los Angeles recording engineer Philip Turetsky's tiny Laurel Canyon bungalow in the Hollywood Hills," noted Pacific Jazz Records' Richard Bock, who was something of a midwife to the group's birth. "Gerry asked Jimmy Rowles, Red Mitchell and Chico Hamilton to meet up at Turetsky's house where I had access to his Ampex tape recorder and one RCA 44-B microphone. For some reason Rowles failed to arrive so we recorded anyway — without the piano. The opening selection on this album, Get Happy, by Arlen and Koehler, was the result of that meeting." Note: Two other selections were recorded at this same session, 'S Wonderful and Godchild, the first of many unreleased gems in this set. Not only that but, contrary to Bock's recollection, piano is to be heard on all three of them. Mulligan plays piano briefly behind Mitchell's bass solos on both Get Happy and 'S Wonderful, while George Wellington's Godchild finds the baritonist exploring the piece wholly on keyboard.
"A week later," Bock continued, "at the Monday night session at The Haig, Mulligan and Chet Baker met. Soon after that meeting Gerry decided to attempt to record with Jimmy Rowles again. So, together with Chet and Joe Mondragon, we met at the Universal Recording Studio in Hollywood on the evening of July 9th, 1952. Out of this session came Kern and Harbach's She Didn't Say Yes. This is the only quartet recording without drums and with piano." Well, not quite. At the same date was produced the previously unissued Haig And Haig. Both performances again, contrary to Bock's recollection, probably were recorded at the Turetsky bungalow rather than at Universal or any other Los Angeles recording studio.
These two performances are also notable for the glimpses they afford of what was then happening onstage at The Haig. The fabled rapport that existed between Mulligan and Baker and which charged their music with such poignancy and excitement had yet to reveal itself, although the seeds are evident. Taken with the group's first three recordings, they clearly reveal that Mulligan was, at this stage, still experimenting with various combinations of instruments and players in an effort to find the proper vehicle for his music's expression, that he did not set out with the idea of a pianoless group in his mind but that as a result of the onstage experiences at The Haig, particularly after meeting and performing with Baker — with and without piano— that the group evolved naturally, almost on its own terms, in the give-and-take of live performance.
It is with the next grouping of titles, again recorded at Turetsky's Laurel Canyon home, that the celebrated pianoless quartet was first introduced to the jazz public through the release, on the newly formed Pacific Jazz Records, of the group's first record. Bock takes up the tale: "In mid-July of 1952, The Haig booked the Red Norvo Trio for an engagement of indefinite length. The trio at that time consisted of Red Mitchell on bass and Tal Farlow on guitar. Inasmuch as the trio did not use a piano, and since Gerry had insisted that he would rather play the Monday night sessions without the piano, Haig owner John Bennett decided to put the piano in storage. It was this decision that brought Chet Baker, Chico Hamilton, and a young bass player from Long Beach by the name of Bob Whitlock to form the first Mulligan pianoless quartet.
"After five Monday nights, Gerry felt the quartet was ready to record. On the afternoon of August 16th, 1952, at the Turetsky bungalow again, we recorded the memorable Bernie's Tune and Lullaby of The Leaves. That record, released as a single in the Fall of 1952, put Pacific Jazz in business. The quartet rapidly became a West Coast sensation. Soon after the release of the single record, the quartet was booked into The Blackhawk in San Francisco. Bob Whitlock was unable to make the trip there, so Gerry replaced him with Carson Smith, a promising young bass player The new quartet was caught in the act by Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle and West Coast editor of Down Beat who said at that time, "The Gerry Mulligan Quartet is certainly the freshest and most interesting sound to come out of jazz in a long time'."
While in San Francisco for the Blackhawk engagement the group, on the recommendation of Dave Brubeck. recorded five selections for that city's Fantasy Records (and made three more titles for the label four months later), which are well worth seeking out, as they duplicate only one of the quartet's Pacific Jazz recordings of the time and offer additional samples of its working repertoire. Returning to Los Angeles, the group was booked into The Haig for an engagement of four weeks which, as Bock recalled, "stretched into over six months and during that time the Mulligan Quartet received national attention through a Time magazine story.
Shortly after settling in for this extended engagement the group undertook additional recording for Pacific Jazz. At a single session held on October 15, 1952, Whitlock back on bass in place of Smith, the quartet recorded six marvelous performances, beginning with the sprightly Aren't You Glad You're You and concluding with Baker's bracing original Freeway. In this group of recordings the original sound of the quartet, as signaled by the earlier Lullaby of The Leaves and Bernie's Tune, was delineated much more fully and resourcefully, with much greater assurance and blossoming creativity on Baker's part. The several months of concerted performing had not only drawn ever-deepening resources of thoughtful, poignant melodism from the young trumpeter, revealing an original, heartfelt style in the making, but also had brought to the fore an ability for improvised counterpoint and other types of interplay that meshed well with Mulligan's easy mastery in this area.
The characteristic sound of the quartet, developed from the simple premise of utilizing to the fullest the potentials of the two horns — as Andre Hodeir described it, "to highlight a very small number of melodic parts by suppressing all harmonic commentary" - was never any one thing but, rather, the sum of many individual handlings of the basic premise, each dictated by the special character of the song being so treated. This was the result of the application of a fluid, generalized working methodology to a fairly wide range of performance vehicles, blues, ballad standards and original lines based on these two basic forms. The distinctiveness that marked the quartet's music from the start was due solely to the great originality and vitality of Mulligan's imagination in shaping the group's arrangements; the stimulating, mutually complementary interplay of the two horn players — the spare, warm, elegaic melodism of Baker and the blowsy. Extroverted, booting inventiveness of Mulligan — each individually pleasing but in tandem much greater than the sum of those separate parts; and powering the engine the steady, deftly propulsive rhythm team of Whitlock and Hamilton. All these things were the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. ….”