© -Gordon Jack copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.
In his introduction, Gordon Jack provides this background to his interviews with the following members of the 1952-53 Gerry Mulligan Quartet featuring Chet Baker: bassists Bob Whitlock and Carson Smith; drummers Chico Hamilton and Larry Bunker.
Early in 1952, after spending several months hitch-hiking from New York to Los Angeles with Gail Madden, Gerry Mulligan obtained a regular Monday night booking at the Haig, a small club opposite the famous Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard.1 Erroll Garner was the featured attraction during the week, and Mulligan played there with pianists like Jimmy Rowles, Paul Smith, Donn Trenner, and Fred Otis when Garner had the night off. After Erroll's engagement, owner John Bennett moved (he concert grand piano from the Haig's cramped stage into storage, to accommodate Red Norvo's vibes when Red's trio took over the residency. Mulligan was now faced with a problem on Monday nights, since he didn't want to use a guitar or the small studio upright that Bennett offered to hire for him. His solution of a pianoless quartet featuring Chet Baker's trumpet, with his own baritone sax not only as a solo vehicle but also as an accompanying voice, created one of the most arresting and distinctive sounds in small group jazz-
Just prior to the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of that group, I interviewed the surviving members — drummers Larry Bunker and Chico Hamilton and bass players Carson Smith and Bob Whitlock — for their impressions of working in such an unusual ensemble. I met Chico Hamilton when he was playing in London's Jazz Cafe with his group Euphoria, but the others replied to my questions on cassette tape.
These interviews constitute Chapter 20 in his Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective [Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004] and as such represent important primary sources for use in documenting Mulligan’s career.
BOB WHITLOCK
The original bass player with the quartet was Bob Whitlock, who was born in Roosevelt, Utah, on January 21, 1931. In the early fifties, he knew Mulligan only by reputation as an arranger with the Miles Davis nonet, but he and Chet Baker had been friends since 1948.
When Gerry and Gail first arrived in L.A., they were both enthusiastically reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, which tells the story of an idealistic architect clashing with big business. It had been released as a film with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, and they really saw themselves in those roles! Anyway, it was around January or February 1952 that Gail telephoned, asking if I would be interested in coming to an audition with Gerry Mulligan. The audition was successful and I was offered the job playing Monday nights with him at the Haig, opposite Erroll Garner. A little later, when we were rehearsing at the Cottage Italia in North Hollywood, it became obvious that the trumpeter Gerry was using, whose name I have now forgotten, wasn't working out.
I should explain that the Cottage Italia was an ordinary Italian restaurant which happened to have a bandstand, and it became a jazz "gladiator" school, where musicians jammed regularly to keep in shape between gigs. It was packed every night, and as far as I know, no one was ever paid a dime. The public was allowed in, but for the most part, musicians and "wannabes" far outnumbered non-musicians. In order to get a feel for the place, it is necessary to understand that nobody organized sets or determined who would play with whom. It was all done very much like choosing sides to play ball in the street, a real grassroots approach resulting in a strange mixture of democracy, anarchy, and survival of the fittest. It was also a surefire way to determine status in the hierarchy of Los Angeles jazz musicians. I once had the dubious distinction of being caught by surprise with a Sunday punch from an angry bass player while combing my hair in the lavatory. He felt slighted about being passed over, and we fought from the lavatory through the bar and restaurant, out onto the street, in front of one of the most attentive crowds I ever performed for. I remember this very well because of a record date the following evening with Gerry for Gene Norman's label at a little second-floor studio on Vine Street. By then my muscles were so stiff and sore, I could barely make it up the stairs with my bass, and the recording session turned out to be a catastrophe. I don't think we ended up with one good take, and as far as I know, nothing we did that night has ever been released.
Gerry needed a new trumpeter, and I persuaded him to consider Chet, assuring him that he would be perfect for the group, as he was one of the best trumpet players on the West Coast. Gerry agreed to an audition and asked me to arrange it as soon as possible. I was excited and I knew Chet would be, as we were both in awe of Gerry's work. Imagine my horror at what happened the following day. Chet had a dreadful habit of warming up at extreme decibel levels. It was irritating, but those who knew him were used to it. After a few ear splitting blasts, Gerry simply went berserk, and there is no other way to describe it. He turned on Chet. screaming, "Don't ever do that around me again!" Chet angrily put his horn away and told Gerry in no uncertain terms where to go and what to do when he got there. They were still raging at each other as Chet stormed out of the audition; it really was quite unbelievable.2 The drummer at the session might have been Lloyd Morales or Alvin Stoller, and I think Gil Barrios was on piano. Gerry still hadn't decided what to do with the piano, as there was a large grand onstage at the Haig for Erroll Garner, and anyway, I always felt that the pianoless concept wasn't planned: it evolved.
On his Monday night gigs at the Haig, Mulligan used a number of musicians, like Sonny Criss, Ernie Royal, Dave Pell, Howard Roberts, and Art Pepper. Pepper sat in on half a dozen occasions, but Whitlock did not recall anything beyond a working relationship between Pepper and Mulligan.
I seriously doubt if they had any social contact to speak of. My guess is that they probably had some musical respect for one another, but knowing both of them. I suspect there would have been a good chance of clashing egos. The one thing they had in common was a great admiration for Zoot's playing. I recall Gerry playing tenor and clarinet at some of our early rehearsals, and although he didn't use the tenor much, I was thoroughly enchanted by the sound he got on his old metal clarinet. I have often wondered why he didn't have a tryst with the bass clarinet, and one can only imagine what he might have done with it.
He occasionally played piano at the Haig and at some of our rehearsals—and as you might expect, his approach was totally individual and distinctive. It was fascinating listening to his highly personal rhythms and harmonies, the best of which were the result of strong, independent voice leading, with a predilection for contrary motion, often producing wonderfully dissonant and strikingly original results. To my ears, he sounded like a superlative arranger attempting to realize some of the richness of his ideas at the keyboard, although I must confess to a preference for leaner textures. Surprisingly, it was when jamming that the complexity and density of Gerry's piano work tended to conspire against swinging, despite the axiom that complex ideas often require complex means. At his best, when he was comfortable with the tempo, he sounded extraordinarily inventive and interesting. At his worst, one had the impression that he was in over his head, especially if the tempo overtaxed his technical facility. I often found in his piano playing a sense of humor similar to Erik Satie, especially when he was parodying older styles. At rehearsals he used the piano as a tool to explore, evoke, or convey a certain mood or feeling.
When we were rehearsing, Gail had a tendency to try to dominate initially, which took some getting used to. Gerry often had his hands full, but many of her observations were very astute, and she made some valuable contributions, in my opinion. How could a bass player fail to appreciate her obsession with transparency, buoyancy, precision, and balance within the group? That was her major concern and the focus of a good deal of her criticism. Gail was nothing if not flamboyant, and she was most certainly in the vanguard. I also found her to be intelligent, resourceful, rebellious, bold, opinionated, and altogether fascinating. She could also be a major pain in the ass sometimes, but at the end of the day, I thought she was great and I give her five stars! I might add that I secretly admired Gerry for his anti-chauvinistic manner of relating to her. Despite some moments that had to be uncomfortable and deeply embarrassing for him, I think he held her in high regard and valued her in many important ways. It wasn't long, though, before she just vanished from the scene, and I never quite understood what went awry. After she was gone, I missed her, because she always managed to generate an aura of excitement that I found very much to my liking.
We sometimes rehearsed at the Haig, but more often we played at Charlene's parents' home, which was in Lynwood, in the southern part of L.A. Aside from the twenty-mile commute, we enjoyed these workouts. Charlene was Chet's wife at the time, and if weather permitted, and it usually did, we played outside on the rear patio. Gerry wrote practically all the originals, but on standards, show tunes, and ballads he not only encouraged but expected everyone to improvise, or improve-ize if you will, and that was the beauty of it. The charts weren't static—just no anarchy, please! When everyone was on the same wave, listening and responding with acumen, it could be very exciting. Having said that, it was Gerry's inimitable presence that drove and defined the character and flavor of the group, and I loved working with it. I couldn't wait to get to work each night, because it was great being out there, totally exposed to the challenge of inventing melodically interesting bass lines, strong enough to eliminate harmonic ambiguity and simple enough to swing. I thrived on that challenge!
Of course Gerry's abilities as an accompanist were phenomenal, and he had that vast pool of ideas to draw upon, from all those years as an arranger. His forte was building spontaneous arrangements, because he was something of an architect. It was really exciting to walk a bass line and discover him moving along a tenth above, totally enhancing the whole effect. He always had his ears open and expected the same from his cohorts. With all due respect to the other guys, without Gerry's accompaniment, there is no Gerry Mulligan Quartet.
CHICO HAMILTON
Just as Gail Madden had recruited Bob Whitlock, she was also responsible for introducing Foreststorn Chico Hamilton to Mulligan. Hamilton, born in Los Angeles on September 21, 1921, had been working for Lena Home since 1947. He was taking a sabbatical from the singer, and Gail heard him at the Streets of Paris, where he was playing with Charlie Barnet.
Gerry wasn't in too great a shape at the time, and he used to hang out at the Streets of Paris nearly every night. We befriended each other, and I often invited him home for dinner with my family. One night he said to me, "Forest-storn, if you play for me the way you play for Charlie Barnet, I'll fire your ass!" I was doing a lot of things with Barnet, like dropping bombs, but he let me do them because Charlie was cool.
Gerry's group with Chet and Bob got together, and we started rehearsing over at my house. The historians can say what they like, and they usually do, but we just happened to be four guys in the right place at the right time. It was destiny, and those recordings still sound fresh today because we were all listening to each other. Suddenly the Haig was the hottest joint in town, with wall-to-wall people every night.
Two months after Mulligan and Chet Baker's first acrimonious meeting, and as a result of what Bob Whitlock has described as some serious apologizing, the Gerry Mulligan Quartet recorded their first titles at Phil Turetsky's bungalow in Laurel Canyon. Phil was an amateur recording engineer, and he produced those initial sides, "Bernie's Tune" and "Lullaby of the Leaves," with just two microphones. The quartet was still doing the off-nights at the Haig when they were booked to play for a week in September at the Black-hawk in San Francisco, opposite Dave Bruheck's Quartet.-* Just prior to this engagement, Whitlock decided to leave the group because, he says, "I was broke and needed income, so I left town with Vido Musso's band." The new bass player was Carson Smith.
CARSON SMITH
Carson Smith was born in San Francisco on January 9, 1931. Just three months before he died in 1997, he talked about his time with Mulligan.
I had been following Gerry's career for several years before I joined the quartet, because he was one of my heroes. His arrangements on those Miles Davis recordings were among my favorites, and I played them until I wore them out. In early 1952 I was living in Long Island, New York, and spending all my time looking for him in jam sessions, until I discovered that he had already taken off for the Coast. I was feeling homesick for California, so a friend and I drove my 1936 Ford across the country. When we reached L.A., I found that Harry Babasin was having a little session down in Inglewood and Chet Baker was there. This was the first time I played with him, and we had a ball. During the break we went outside to smoke a little grass, and he asked if I would like to team up with a guy called Gerry Mulligan who had a quartet without a piano. I said, "You have to be kidding. I have been looking for him for the past year." Gerry had a rehearsal a couple of days later, and I sure liked what I heard. I did my best with what little musical experience I had, although I knew a lot of tunes, which impressed Gerry. That meant that he didn't have to teach me a lot, and he seemed to take a little bit of a liking to me. Except for some originals, very little of his stuff was laid out on paper.
I never met Gail Madden, as she and Gerry had split up before I joined the group, but I knew she was a little strange from the stories I heard from everyone who knew her.4 She was what you might call a hippy, before the hippies came in. She apparently pushed Gerry pretty well, like most of his female associates, who were all strong women.
It was while the group played in San Francisco that they recorded part of an album for Fantasy Records, which included their celebrated version of "My Funny Valentine." Mulligan has said that this is the only album he didn't receive royalties from, and it is arguably one of the best he made with Chet Baker. Smith told me about the recording session.
Those sides were recorded by having us stand around a single 440 mike, which looked like a small football placed about nine inches above the floor. We had actually run out of things to play, and Gerry asked if anyone could think of something. I suggested "Funny Valentine," which nobody knew, so I quickly sketched out a lead line, and it almost became Chet's theme song for the rest of his life.5
I used a rented bass whenever we recorded, because my instrument at the time was literally falling apart, so I had to get a new one. When the quartet got back to L.A.. I bought an old French bass from Joe Mondragon for $300, which doesn't sound much now, but you couldn't touch that bass for $8,000 today. Thanks to Ralph Pena, who was leaving Billy May, I had the chance to go on the road with the band for a three-month tour. I arranged to send Joe $50 a week from my paycheck until I paid him off, and of course I told Gerry why I was leaving the group.
BOB WHITLOCK
In October 1952 the quartet returned to the studios to complete their first album for Pacific Jazz with Bob Whitlock again on bass. He was in town after working with Vido Musso, whose big hit at the time was "Come Back to Sorrento."
Gerry asked if I wanted to return, and I accepted. After a few weeks of "Sorrento," I was ready to go back as his gardener if necessary. We were mostly working at the Haig, except for two engagements at the Blackhawk and some Sunday afternoon sessions in Hollywood at the Tailspin on Cahuenga Boulevard. We eventually lost the job at the Tailspin when Steve White showed up one afternoon in rare form. He was a brilliant tenor player and a legend in his own time, and I think Gerry wanted to shoot him on the spot, because the group was just beginning to really make it. There may have been a few other minor casual dates that I don't recall.
The quartet had become very popular and the reason was "Show-Biz," plain and simple. Gerry knew the importance of variety in material and treatment, and he had an uncanny sense of pacing. We not only played standards and originals but also everything from Latin sambas to tunes from Disney movies. There was something for everyone, and the caliber of musicianship was always convincing. Also, it would be naive to ignore some of the more obvious gimmicks that Gerry used. For instance, the slightest disturbance in the audience was his cue to stop the band in its tracks and make an example of the poor perpetrator, and how the rest of the crowd ate it up! It reminds me of when Miles used to turn his back on the audience, play a few bars, and then walk off stage. Audiences, especially "hip" jazz audiences in the fifties, loved the melodrama, even when it involved being insulted, or maybe because of it. It's no wonder that we were often referred to as "the Chamber Music Society of Lower Wilshire Boulevard"! Of course, there's no denying that just the idea of a pianoless group got Gerry plenty of attention, as well as a lot of free publicity, and you can rest assured that he was not oblivious to the fruits of controversy. I also sensed that audiences were able to feel the excitement of our newfound independence and felt a certain connection with us, which they weren't used to, and they liked it. Then, when the group really started to catch on, it was a fait accompli, oui?
Ironically, what makes performing without a piano so exciting is the very thing that can bring you to the abyss, because you are always exposed. If the creative juices aren't flowing or you are otherwise compromised, it can be devastating, and even a minor fault in intonation can make you want to run and hide. There is also some limitation in material, because certain pieces almost demand a chordal approach to be effective and can be tough to handle. Others lend themselves to a more linear treatment and do just fine with a couple of moving lines — a basso ostinato — or some other unifying device, to define and clarify. Obviously it is from this type that you draw most of your material, because no one likes swimming upstream for too long. One of the worst problems for me involved tuning, especially at the outset of the evening, when changes in temperature and humidity were wreaking havoc on the instruments. Since the horns' pitch was dominant, it was on me to adjust, and it isn't easy playing while reaching for the tuning pegs!
I remember William Holden and Deborah Kerr used to visit the Haig, and what a class act they were. Their behavior was impeccable, and they really seemed to enjoy being there. After paying so many times to see them on the screen, I couldn't believe they were actually paying to see us. One of the most important visitors I can recall, although not a star per se, was Leonard Rosen-man, the film composer, who later wrote those haunting Berg-like passages in the opening of Kazan's East of Eden. I reckoned if people like Rosenman were interested in us. we must be doing something right.
It is a well-known cliché that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. I wanted to ask Bob if he had ever sent in a dep while he was with the group. Not sure if the abbreviation would be totally understood, I used the word "deputy" instead.
Deputy. I love that word. Californians hear it and ditch their pill bottles! The only dep I sent in was Red Mitchell, who was a class act and an absolutely incredible soloist. He sat in with the group a few times and was perfectly at ease.
As far as personal relationships within the group were concerned, I got along great with Gerry at first. He was friendly and charming and I was very much in awe of him; after all, he was the chief arranger on one of the most historically significant jazz recordings in history. Unfortunately, our relationship eventually took a downward turn, and it just went from bad to worse. As far as he and Chet were concerned, Gerry liked to create the impression that Chet was his discovery and protege and fancied himself as some kind of mentor, which didn't sit well with Chet at all. He was having none of it and didn't resist an opportunity to repudiate any such suggestion, often in open revolt against Gerry.
Chet was one of those rare birds who learned to read music but never had any real training in harmony. Most of us play by ear, assisted by some knowledge of harmony and counterpoint, but since he didn't have the benefit of those tools, he was forced to do it all by ear, and therein lies his genius. Naturally, there is a price to pay with this approach. It requires the bravado to run through minefields and the courage of Hannibal, because the perils are endless. The reward comes in the form of refreshing vitality, breathtaking melodic invention, freedom from exasperating clichés, extraordinary sensitivity to shading and color, and a lyricism second to none. Not a bad trade-off if you are willing to take the risks, and Chet greeted the challenge like a gladiator. Of course, Gerry's trade winds blew from the opposite direction. He had all the tools at his disposal, and he made impressive use of them, especially in the area of accompaniment, where he was probably without peer. In Chet's case, he was my closest friend. We would spend whole days together, and we always knew we could count on each other. As for Chico, he thought he was my big brother. Every so often after work, he would take me to one of those after-hours speakeasies on the south side, where everyone knew him. I guess you could say we were socializing, but whatever we were doing. I enjoyed it. I liked Chico and was always happy to see him coming down the pike.
I stayed with Gerry until the night before Christmas Eve 1952. We had just returned from the group's second stint at the Blackhawk, and I remember going out to Chet's car during intermission at the Haig. A police cruiser came by our parked car in time to see sparks flying from a furtively lit joint tossed out of the window. One of the officers turned out to be from Chet's home state of Oklahoma, and he told him that if there was no more weed in the car, he would release us with a warning. Chalk that up for male bonding, I thought, but when they searched the car, they found two full lids in the door panel. We were summarily arrested and spent the Yuletide in jail, during which Chet took all the weight and had me cut loose. This incident led to a bitter confrontation with Gerry in the dressing room at the Haig, where he decreed that Chet and I were bad news for each other. By this time our personal relationship had deteriorated beyond redemption, but up to this point we had never threatened each other physically. I guess we were bluffing, because it all ended with a childish exchange of "You're fired!" and "I quit!" What can I say? Boys will be boys! My heroin habit was way out of control by this time, and some concerned relatives intervened. Three of my closest cousins were visiting for the holidays and came to the Haig to surprise me, but they were horrified at my condition and nearly kidnapped me. A few days later I was on my way back with them to my birthplace in Utah, and although it was cold turkey and tough for a while, I stayed there for nearly a year and got my health back.
CHICO HAMILTON
Chico Hamilton was still with the quartet at this time, and towards the end of January 1953 he and Larry Bunker shared the drum duties on Mulligan's tentet album. His personal circumstances, though, were quite different from his colleagues. At thirty-one, he was by far the oldest, and he was the only one to have a wife and family. The job at the Haig paid union scale, but he could clearly earn far more with Lena Home.
I was under contract to Lena, and when she was ready to go back to work, I had to leave the group. I have often wondered what would have happened if I had stayed, because they were good times and Gerry and Chet became virtual superstars. Most people don't realize that Chet was a phenomenon, and he was not just an imitation of Miles Davis; he was a hell of a player. He could play like any trumpeter you can name, but he had his own thing going. And Gerry, after Harry Carney, reinvented the baritone. He had a flowing, swinging style, and you could say he applied Lester Young's approach to the instrument. He was one of the most melodic baritone players ever, and with his soft, well-rounded, smooth sound he could almost sound like Johnny Hodges on that thing! I have a tremendous respect for Gerry and his abilities as a musician.
Eventually, there was friction between Gerry and Chet, and I would sometimes stay in the middle of them to keep them apart. Some nights we would come off the stand, and Chet would stand one way at the bar and Gerry another, so that they were back to back."
To be continued in Part 2.