© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Originally published in London in 1986 by Quartet Books LTD, Bob Gordon’s Jazz West Coast, a seminal work on the Jazz styles and groups that developed primarily in Los Angeles in the 1950s, has long been out-of-print and copies of it are difficult to obtain.
In order to rectify this lack of availability, Bob Gordon allowed the editorial staff permission to reprint the work in its entirety on JazzProfiles. You can locate it in the blog archives via this link. Bob has also given permission to feature his work on the Mosaic Chico Hamilton boxed set and the double CD of Stan Kenton at Newport on these pages and you can find links to these in the blog sidebar under “Labels.”
Given his expertise on all-things-West-Coast-Jazz, it seemed appropriate to include an example of his writing on Gerry in the forthcoming Mulligan anthology.
Here’s a preview.
© Copyright ® Robert Gordon, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.
THE GERRY MULLIGAN QUARTETS IN CONCERT
(Pablo PACD-5309-2)
For better or worse, Gerry Mulligan’s name seems to be inextricably linked in the jazz public’s mind with the format of a pianoless quartet. Despite the fact that he first came to prominence as a young big band arranger in the mid-1940s; that his sextet of the mid-1950s was an artistic and commercial success; that he organized one of the finest modern jazz big bands of his own in the early Sixties; and that his favored instrumentation in his final decades was a quartet with the conventional piano; the words “Gerry Mulligan “ will probably always be followed by “pianoless quartet” in most listener’s minds.
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 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 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 Mulligan would use following Chet Baker, notably Jon Eardley or Art Farmer. The valve trombone is usually thought of as being a rather staid and conservative relation to 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 2, 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 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 big band arrangements.
The second set heard here, from a JATP European tour, was recorded in Paris, October 6, 1962, with Bill Crow on bass and Gus Johnson on drums. These were 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 a version of it was recorded during his tenure with Stan Getz. Here his ever-fluid style is, if anything, even more sinuous than usual. “Love in New Orleans” displays Gerry's admiration and respect for the old 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 quartet makes it all sound as easy as a walk in the park.
Finally, there is “Subterranean Blues,” a performance that belies the 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 a Jack Kerouac novel and the film’s score, by André 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 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 somewhat 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 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, August 2000