JAZZ : Still Fresh : At 67, baritone sax giant Gerry Mulligan is as receptive to innovative ideas as he was during the revolutionary decades of the ‘40s and ‘50s
He still has the classic jazz image: tall, reed-thin and bearded, bending slightly at the waist as he stands, arms reaching out to embrace the complex tubes and keys of an unwieldy baritone saxophone.
Then come the sounds, the stream of notes that pour forth from the instrument’s large, brassy bell--equally classic and instantly recognizable. The vibrantly muscular tone, the buoyant melodies, seductive harmonies and irrepressibly rhythmic music of Gerry Mulligan.
A true man for all jazz seasons. One of the surviving masters of the revolutionary be-bop music of the ‘40s and ‘50s. The premiere baritone saxophonist of the last four decades. The winner of an incredible 29 consecutive Down Beat magazine Readers Poll Awards, with enough other honors to fill a closet.
And a big fan of Kenny G.
“Excuse me,” you might say, “Did I miss something? Gerry Mulligan is a fan of Kenny G ?”
Precisely. Or, as he put it, in his own words, “Kenny G has a beautiful sound on soprano.”
So the Prince of the Dark-Toned Baritone finds something to like in the merry music of the Pied Piper of Pop? Why not? Baryshnikov likes tap dancing, Bernstein was a fan of the Beatles, and the French love Jerry Lewis.
But it shouldn’t be all that surprising. At 67, Mulligan, who appears Saturday night with his quartet at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, has never been one to close his mind to new musical trends. The fiery red hair of his youth may have matured to a magisterial, snowy white, but Mulligan continues to be as alert and receptive to fresh ideas as he was during the revolutionary jazz decades of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Although the jazz of the ‘90s doesn’t strike him as comparable, either in substance or intent, he obviously has listened to it selectively.
“Kenny seems to do things that are more like a kind of floating rhythm,” Mulligan explained. “And that’s part of the charm, I guess, because it’s based on the current pop rhythm section sound.
“The other thing, of course, is that the saxophone seems to be the ‘in’ instrument for the record industry these days. Altos and sopranos have finally been discovered--maybe because their sounds are easier to hear.”
Mulligan’s comment was tinged with a touch of irony. He has spent the last four decades almost single-handedly bringing the cumbersome baritone saxophone, with its bold, resonant sound, to the attention of the listening audience. Arguably, he has been the dominant performer on the instrument in all of jazz history. It has to be perplexing for him to watch the long parade of successful pop/jazz soprano, alto and tenor saxophonists such as Kenny G, David Sanborn, Tom Scott, Kirk Whalum and Grover Washington Jr.
So how does he feel about the fact that the soprano, alto and tenor saxophones have become the “in” instruments, while the baritone continues to be a kind of oversized black sheep?
“Well,” he says softly, in a kind of reluctant concession, “the higher-voiced saxophones do make nice-sounding records.”
The shifting boundaries between pop, jazz and other musical forms that have brought new prominence to the saxophone family are not exactly surprising to Mulligan. After all, he’s seen it before. His own first jobs as a musician were with big bands in the ‘40s, at a time when pop and jazz music were freely intermingled, and many listeners felt that Jimmy Dorsey and Tex Beneke--not Charlie Parker and Lester Young--were the greatest saxophonists in the world.
“As far as the idea of fusing pop and jazz elements in Kenny G’s music is concerned,” said Mulligan, “it’s kind of inevitable. Musicians are always trying to relate the various styles that are around in their own time and trying to make music out of them.”
But he also stresses that jazz and pop music--despite superficial similarities--both in the ‘40s and the ‘90s evolved from strikingly different points of view. Aware of the currents of jazz drifting through rap, hip-hop and other pop music arenas, and the sampling of jazz riffs by groups such as Digable Planets, Mulligan keeps creative matters in context.
“By and large,” he said, “jazz musicians are very single-minded about staying with the music. Pop musicians, on the other hand, seem to be primarily concerned with dealing with the business. To them, the audience is just part of the equation.
“I mean, look at the stage productions some of these bands have,” he said. “Man, the stage stuff they carry with them--my God, you can’t deviate from the light program or the whole thing would go out of whack.”
Mulligan is also quick to place the productions associated with crossover performers such as Kenny G in perspective. He relates their kaleidoscopic lighting, big-screen projections and performer strolls around the arenas to their logical predecessors--nightclub shows, theatrical musicals and Las Vegas reviews.
“These are shows that give the illusion of spontaneity, but not the reality,” he said. “If you go to see them, it’s the shows that you’re going to see, not necessarily the music. To me, it’s the new circus.”
And it’s not precisely the kind of environment Mulligan has in mind for his own music. Given his choice, he would prefer to explore a far-reaching range of musical interests--without the light shows.
“I’d like to do more recording with ensembles of various kinds, and different projects that are aside from the things I do in concert,” Mulligan said. “But it’s not easy.”
Although Mulligan has remained quite active in the recording studios, his recent work--like that of many jazz artists of his generation--appears to have been bypassed by major labels in favor of younger mainstream musicians. In 1993, he released his first Brazilian-oriented collection, an album called “Paraiso” on Telarc. However, before 1992’s “Rebirth of the Cool” album for GRP Records, his most recent jazz release on a major label was “Lonesome Boulevard” in 1990 for A & M. It’s difficult to understand why he doesn’t have a long-term contract with a major label. Both his playing and his composing are as good as ever, and the young-blood probing of his youth has been attractively tempered by a mature creative overview.
Mulligan has an answer: “Back in the ‘40s,” he said, “popularity was geared on sales levels of hundreds of thousands. Today, it’s based on a scale of tens of millions.
“If you deal with a company that is focused on the pop scene, things can get very hard. I’ve done albums for companies like that, and the result is that my records get dropped from the catalogue after a few years.”
It’s a common complaint from veteran jazz musicians, but one which doesn’t preoccupy Mulligan, who persists in sustaining an upbeat attitude. Asked if he feels any resentment toward the young, contemporary players who are selling their fusion mixtures of lightweight jazz and pop in the millions of copies, he was characteristically nonplussed.
“That’s one of those questions about artistic integrity which don’t really concern me,” he said. “Because I can only do what I can do. Sure, I wouldn’t mind having the opportunity to make albums that would reach a broader public. I like to write tunes in the good old American song form. . . . What I’m not so interested in doing is adapting what I do to the momentary styles.”
Then, unpredictable as ever, Mulligan shifts gears and, almost whimsically, adds that the possibility of playing with a pop group might be pretty intriguing to him.
“If people want to use me on their albums for some kind of contemporary pop sort of thing, I’m always willing to try,” he said. “Because I figure with any opportunity to play, I can always find something musical to do.”
“Something musical” is something Mulligan has been doing with notable success from the moment he turned up on the jazz scene in the mid-’40s as a precocious teen-ager. Playing tenor saxophone and arranging for local Philadelphia bands, he once performed for a special concert at the Academy of Music that featured such then-emerging stars as Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan. When Mulligan was invited to play at a post-concert jam session, he declined, at first, until Parker handed him an instrument.
“I was scared to death,” recalled Mulligan. “But Charlie was helpful and encouraging. It never hurts to have someone like him give you a shove when you’re young.”
At 19, Mulligan was in New York City, playing and writing for the Gene Krupa and Claude Thornhill bands, studying with Gil Evans and hanging out with an innovative group of young Turks that included John Lewis, Miles Davis, Lee Konitz, George Russell and John Benson Brooks.
“It was an important time,” he said. “And I think we were aware that it was important while it was taking place, which is kind of unusual. But Gil and the kind of people he attracted, and the kind of conversations that went on, made it a kind of spiritual time for all of us, a real learning process.”
One of the principal results of the get-togethers--which usually took place casually in Evans’ room behind a Chinese laundry--was the influential Miles Davis “Birth of the Cool” recordings. Rich with uncommon timbres (the ensemble included a tuba and French horn in addition to jazz horns and rhythm section), unexpected counterpoint and colorful dissonances, the recordings had a powerful impact on jazz composition and arranging for the next 15 to 20 years. In fact, it probably would be difficult to find a composer or arranger in today’s entertainment world who has not been affected on some level by the tradition-busting charts written by Mulligan, Evans, Lewis and Johnny Carisi.
Last year, Mulligan re-recorded the “Birth of the Cool” pieces with a new ensemble in which Wallace Roney replaced Miles Davis, and Phil Woods filled in for an unavailable Lee Konitz. Critical responses were mixed. Questioned about the differences in sound and style--about the fact that Konitz, when told of Woods’ participation, laughed and said, “I think you just invented the ‘Birth of the Hot’ “-- Mulligan shrugged and said, “Don’t miss the point here. This was intended to be a different band.
“My whole reason for doing it was the curiosity of seeing how the same arrangements would sound with a different band and with all the musical changes that have taken place over the years since the first recording.”
In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Mulligan continued his efforts to stretch the jazz envelope. The piano-less quartet he organized in 1952 with trumpeter Chet Baker simultaneously challenged musicians to expand their harmonic ideas while setting a tone and manner that became a framework for the emergence of “West Coast jazz.” And it did so with vibrant, often playful tunes such as Mulligan’s “Walking Shoes,” “Soft Shoes” and “Rocker,” which blended the collective counterpoint of New Orleans jazz with the articulate lines of be-bop.
Back in New York in 1960, Mulligan formed his concert jazz band at a time when sizable musical aggregations were rapidly disappearing. To many observers, it seemed a quixotic act, yet it restated, at precisely the right moment, the enduring relevance of large ensembles. And it was a very good band, featuring Mulligan and Bob Brookmeyer’s solos, and expanding upon the essential elements of the piano-less quartet. An “A list” destination for young arrangers, the band introduced the work of such important new talents as Gary McFarland--who soon became one of the most successful composer-arrangers of the ‘60s.
The subsequent appearance of dozens of rehearsal groups around the country, dedicated to the creative exploration of big-band instrumentation, continued to be energized by Mulligan’s intermittent return to leading big bands over the next few decades.
“It’s always been fun to have a big band,” he said, “even though it’s never really worked out, if only because it’s so expensive. Ultimately, despite the musical achievements, I’m not sure that I’ve ever made my investment back with the big band in any kind of noticeable way. I still have to sink a lot of money into it every time it goes out.”
Since the ‘60s, he has led a variety of different-sized groups, always returning, at one time or another, to the big-band format. The common aspect of all has been the structure and cohesiveness of the music, even when he is working--as he will be at the Ambassador--with a traditional piano, bass and drums rhythm section.
His program will be a Mulligan overview, familiar tunes contrasted with new material, performed with musicians--Ted Rosenthal on piano, Dean Johnson on bass and Ron Vincent on drums--who have been long-term regulars with his groups.
But the siren call of the large ensemble, expenses and all, clearly remains for Mulligan. “I’ll always think as an arranger,” he said. “Each band, large or small, represents another writing approach.”
In the ‘80s, he frequently performed with symphonic ensembles ranging from the Los Angeles and Stockholm philharmonics to the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony and Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra. Mulligan commissioned Harry Freedman’s “The Sax Chronicles” in 1984 to showcase the saxophonist’s melodies in the styles of such composers as Bach, Brahms and Mozart. A saxophone concerto, commissioned from composer Frank Proto, was performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
When Mulligan is not at his home near Stamford, Conn., much of his time these days is spent working in Italy (and living in an apartment in Milan, “just around the corner from La Scala”), where he continues to have a major following. “I get there as often as I can,” he said. “I love to go to the rehearsals at La Scala. It’s like having a busman’s holiday.”
Equally important, he sees in the European audience a sophistication not always present in American listeners, due in part to the wider array of music available there.
“It’s such a pleasure in Europe to turn on the radio and not get one single thing constantly thrown at you,” he said. “Stations play a very wide variety of stuff. They’ll go from a Beethoven string quartet to Sting to Charlie Parker. It’s very different from what you hear in this country.”
Mulligan noted, for example, that free jazz music--an improvisational approach that has passed whatever peak it reached in the United States--continues to draw audiences in Europe. Although the style has never been noticeably present in Mulligan’s music, he praises its intentions, adding that European listeners, because of their eclecticism, are more receptive to free jazz’s complex sounds.
“What makes it interesting to me, and probably to European audiences, as well,” he said, “is the fact that free jazz has opened up the possibility for every member of a group to be an instant composer. And musicians like that. Maybe eventually there will be enough of a sense of group composition to be able to control it so it’s not always so chaotic. But I think that the desire to go in that direction is understandable.”
Mulligan added that European audiences are equally responsive to the resurgence of mainstream jazz, and find no contradiction in hearing and appreciating, side by side, the two radically different approaches to jazz improvisation. He bemoans the lack of similarly eclectic receptivity in American listeners.
“There’s not much that happens in our culture,” he continued, “at least not much that’s easily available to people, that helps make our audience particularly sophisticated in the same way. The television coverage of the Olympics was a case in point. It was so shallow. I mean the interviews were unbelievably maudlin. How can they do that--much less how can people sit still for it without being sick on the rug?”
Whether the audiences are receptive or not, whether he’s working in front of knowledgeable Europeans or pop-drenched Americans, Mulligan will continue to follow his own unique, personal, truth-telling muse wherever it leads him.
“Music’s a little unique,” he concluded. “The more you know about it, the more you can appreciate it. And that’s why you really have to give something back to music. Because the more you give, the more you get.”
