Gerry Mulligan became famous well beyond jazz circles for his 1950s quartet that included Chet Baker on trumpet, succeeded by Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone. Mulligan achieved universal admiration among musicians and a large following of listeners with his Concert Jazz Band, which flourished in the early 1960s. He frequently said, though, that his greatest musical satisfaction came from the sextet he headed from 1955 through 1958.
The sextet made a brief preview appearance in December of 1954 when Mulligan played a concert at a high school in San Diego, California. On that occasion, Red Mitchell was on bass and Larry Bunker on drums. Then, the quartet with Brookmeyer was still Mulligan’s working band, but nine months later he constituted the sextet as a permanent entity. The front line had Mulligan’s baritone saxophone, Brookmeyer’s trombone, Zoot Sims’ tenor saxophone and Jon Eardley’s trumpet. The bassist was Peck Morrison, the drummer Dave Bailey. Eardley was replaced for a short time near the end of the band’s life by Don Ferrara, Morrison by Bill Crow. The sextet recorded three twelve-inch LPs on the Emarcy label, none of which the company ever reissued on CD. Verve, which bought the Emarcy masters, now offers one of the albums as a web site digital download.
All of the Mulligan Sextet recordings, including the San Diego concert first issued by Pacific Jazz, are in a new three-CD box on Spain’s Fresh Sound Label. To find it, go here. The set is also available here. It is called The Fabulous Gerry Mulligan Sextet. The hyperbole of the title is justified. Mulligan’s leadership molded the six men into a unit capable of bringing to life the ambitious vision he laid out in his compositions and arranging. They combined the spontaneity of a freewheeling jam session with the disciplined performance of a chamber group. Because of Mulligan’s voicings, the horn lines that he layered and intertwined, and the intensely close relationships among the players, the group often sounds twice its size. The critic Ralph J. Gleason once characterized the effect of the sextet’s horns at their most rambunctious as “a boiling and bubbling stew which can raise me right off the floor.”
The pieces include Mulligan’s “Apple Core,” “Nights at the Turntable” and “Elevation,” Jerry Lloyd’s “Mud Bug,” Eardley’s “Demanton” (read it backward), and Mulligan’s ingenious treatments of standards. Two Duke Ellington medleys, the impressionistic “La plus que lente” and a glorious “Sweet and Lovely” are highlights of an album of highlights. There is not a dull moment in thirty-seven tracks. Among other attributes, these sextet recordings have some of the most inspired and ebullient Zoot Sims on record, compelling statements by Brookmeyer in the gruff-old-man style of his youth, and Mulligan’s baritone in full, majestic bloom. Eardley, with his fleet lines and slightly acerbic tone, fit perfectly with his more famous colleagues.
Later, Mulligan formed other sextets of various instrumentations. The enchanting Night Lights has the one with Brookmeyer, trumpeter Art Farmer and guitaritst Jim Hall. But there was never another Mulligan sextet that had quite the vivacity and sense of discovery of the band with Sims, Brookmeyer and Eardley. The digital remastering and reissue production by Dick Bank give the recordings greater depth and brilliance than they had in their original format. This welcome CD reissue of an important chapter in modern American music has been needed for a long time.
Coming soon: a few thoughts about Brookmeyer’s latest, Spirit Music.