Gerry Mulligan, Present at the Creation

Gerry Mulligan. In the world of jazz, the mention of the name alone calls up instant images of sight and sound. Mulligan’s lean and lanky frame, positioned in an almost balletic equilibrium to stabilize the massive, convoluted brass piping of his baritone saxophone. Topped, in the early years, by flaming red hair; more recently, by a snowy beard and a white mop-top.

And Mulligan’s tone, immediately recognizable, a rich, warm, inviting timbre. Smooth and flowing in ballads, overflowing with energy and vigor in up-tempos, it was a sound that spoke, always, irresistibly, in the dialect of the urgent, propulsive swing that is at the heart of jazz.

Although the media reports said that Mulligan, who died Saturday at his home in Darien, Conn., at the age of 68, was the victim of the “complications” of surgery and/or a knee infection, there had been recurrent rumors for months, never confirmed, that he had cancer. But he continued to perform until a few weeks ago, and plans were in the works for more concerts and recordings.

In retrospect, Mulligan appears to have been taken for granted by the jazz world. Arguably one of the two (with Harry Carney) important and influential players in the history of the baritone saxophone, he was universally admired and praised. But few seemed willing to elevate him to the top levels of the jazz pantheon.

Part of the problem, of course, was his versatility. Soloist, bandleader, composer, arranger and songwriter, he touched all the important musical bases, inspiring other musicians from the beginning.

“When you get a guy like Gerry Mulligan around a band,” Miles Davis once said, “all the other arrangers start writing a little better.”

Equally problematic, Mulligan was so active, for so long, that it’s easy to overlook the fact that he was present--in significant fashion--at a remarkable number of jazz watersheds.

In the late ‘40s, he was one of the first composers to add the harmonies and rhythms of be-bop to big-band charts, for both Claude Thornhill and Gene Krupa (who recorded Mulligan’s memorable bop line “Disc Jockey Jump” in 1947).

In 1949, Miles Davis’ influential “Birth of the Cool” sessions included three Mulligan originals (“Venus De Milo,” “Jeru” and “Rocker”) and two of his arrangements. The impact upon a postwar generation of jazz musicians was, and to some extent continues to be, monumental.

West Coast jazz, at the time the most widely popular form of jazz since the Swing Era, was powerfully affected by the melodic, carefully crafted compositions Mulligan wrote for his piano-less quartet with Chet Baker on trumpet in the early 1950s. Later in the decade, Mulligan, barely 30 years old, turned up in the now-classic television show “The Sound of Jazz” in the exalted company of Billie Holiday, Lester Young and Ben Webster, among others.

Then, in 1960, at a time when big-band jazz was viewed by many as a rapidly departing dinosaur, Mulligan organized his Concert Jazz Band, bringing new life to the style and providing musical direction for such talented young composer-arrangers as Garry McFarland and Bob Brookmeyer. When Paul Desmond left the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1967, Mulligan filled in as “guest soloist” on and off for nearly six years, maintaining a strong voice in the wilderness for straight-ahead jazz at a time when pop, rock and fusion were beginning to seize the day.

Like so many jazz artists, Mulligan’s visibility went into a state of eclipse during the ‘70s. But in the ‘80s, he once again emerged, as bright and animated as ever, recording quartet music, symphonic music, a remake of the “Birth of the Cool” recording and, in the ‘90s, several appealing albums on Telarc (the most recent, “Dragonfly,” was released in November).

Mulligan also took part in another watershed event, the famous 1958 Esquire magazine photograph, taken in Harlem, of an assemblage of many of the world’s prominent jazz musicians. A few months ago, Life magazine gathered together the surviving participants for a similar photograph.

Ironically, it was published Monday, two days after Mulligan’s death. Ten of the 12 original musicians (Sonny Rollins and Ernie Wilkins were unable to make the session) are present in the now grim and empty-looking setting. Among them is Mulligan, appearing somewhat wan and aged. Twelve survivors from a cast of players who, 37 years ago, virtually defined the world of jazz. Now there are only 11.