Customer Reviews

Gerry Mulligan Meets Johnny Hodges (Dig)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Maybe not absolutely essential, but very enjoyable music from two of the best. Their saxophones blend together so beautifully. A bit on the short side (34 minutes) but wonderfully re-mastered. Every track is a joy. Nothing as inspirational as Mulligan-Webster's "Chelsea Bridge" but a CD you will go back to over and over again. Highly recommended.

I disagree with the previous reviewers this is a great record don't expect what you get with the big bands both of them were associated with this is relaxed small group jazz at its best.With the great Mel Lewis on drums providing just the right impetus you can tell things were pretty mellow in the studio that day.I am surprised this one hasn't been elevated to higher status as the classic it is.You will not be disapointed with this purchase.

How can you not love this CD? Hodges always seems to bring out the best in the other players. Or... or does Mulligan do it.... The Ben Webster/GM cd is amazing also. In any case this is a great performance and has excellent sound. (recorded shortly after Putnam opened United). Mulligan (bari) Hodges (alto) Claude Williamson (p) Buddy Clark (b) Mel Lewis (d)

As an aside, if you like this, check out the Mosaic Hodges Box Set - unfortunately you have to go to the Mosaic site to get it.

Certainly not the best either artist has to offer, but the remastering is very well done and the music is ultimately very enjoyable. At just a little over a half an hour of music, and at a very reasonable price, this one should be in any filled out jazz collection. 4 stars for the 'overall package'.

Again, Norman Granz certainly knew what he was doing. As a kid I shied away from buying this album even tho' I was a big Gerry Mulligan fan. I just couldn't imagine that the collaboration with Johnny Hodges would be anything but yucky. However, I have learned to appreciate Hodges and want to say that this is a must album for the serious jazz collector, casual listener, Mulligan fan or Hodges fan. Good stuff indeed. Everyone on the album is an All Star in their own right. They mesh well. They all stay within themselves and the result is excellent jazz. One can hear the immediate effect each of these saxophone virtuosos has on each other. Then there's the Claude Williamson's subtly excellent piano giving little Ellington signatures along the way which will be recognizable to anyone familiar with the Duke; very cute without going overboard. Buddy Clarks bass lines are solid and of course, Mel Lewis holds it all together as he always does. I highly recommend this CD.

I have little to add to what Royal Diasticutis said in his 2005 review, but this encounter between two of the best is remarkable, harkening back to Mulligan's cool jazz collaborations from the early 50s. All of the songs are excellent, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be Shady Side...

And lest we forget, Claude Williamson (piano), Buddy Clark (bass), and Mel Lewis (drums) add minimalist but very necessary support.

I was pleased when I first found this CD and had not been aware that it had been released in CD format. Since I am both a big Johnny Hodges and Gerry Mulligan fan, I thought I was going to hear great music.Once I listened to it several times I was greatly disappointed as none of the tunes really impressed me and the potential of their meeting did not create the fire one would have expected.

This is another in a series of remarkable collaborations between Gerry Mulligan and several of the major jazzmen of our time. Of a previous meeting that involved Gerry and Ben Webster (Verve MG V-8343/MG VS-6104), John S. Wilson noted judiciously in High Fidelity: "It is a rare thing when a flawlessly finished performance of one selection comes out of a jazz recording session. It is almost unheard of to have an entire session remain close to this level of perfection. That, however, was the case in the session that produced this superb disc."
It seems to me that the same appraisal can be made of this colloquy between Gerry Mulligan and Johnny Hodges. Gerry had been looking forward to recording with "The Rabbit" for a long time. He, therefore, welcomed Norman Granz's idea for this series. "Johnny," said Mulligan, "has been one of the men I most enjoyed hearing as long as I can remember. I started playing alto in my teens, after clarinet, and so became particularly interested in Hodges' work with the Ellington band."

Hodges has been - and remains - one of the key stylistic influences on jazz alto saxophone. Early in his career, Hodges was befriended and somewhat influenced by Sidney Bechet but he soon began to form a uniquely lyrical style and sound of his own. In addition to the singing clarity and mellowness of Hodges' tone, his playing is also characterized by consummate poise. He is thoroughly in control of his instrument and there is no split between his conception and his ability to execute all of his ideas. A corollary of Hodges' poise is his capacity for total relaxation -floating, flawless time; unhurried, fully developing ideas; and equal ease in ballads and swingers.

Commenting on the shallow view of some critics that men like Hodges have become superannuated, Mulligan says that "the compulsion to say something `new' every day is a significantly immature way of looking at life. The constant drive to force musicians and other artists to constantly invent something `new' is one of the banes of the creative life; and this particular kind of pressure, incidentally, also reveals something of our whole culture. In any case, if there are people who cannot hear how thoroughly mature and individual Hodges is, I'm sorry for them."

The session was planned ahead in the sense that both Mulligan and Hodges thought about the date for some time before the actual recording, for which Hodges was flown to the west coast. Each of the two protagonists brought in three originals, and each pretty much determined the routines for his own songs. The session went very smoothly, with nearly all the tunes being done in no more than three takes.

Mulligan selected the rhythm section and it includes one of the most reliably swinging and tasteful drummers in the. Los Angeles area, Mel Lewis; the big-sounding Buddy Clark on bass; and Claude Williamson in what I think is his most relaxed and personal playing on record so far. (Listen, for example, to his singularly sensitive work in What's The Rush.)

Like the Ben Webster-Gerry Mulligan dialogue with rhythm, this set too is particularly attractive for its wholly casual air. There's no strain, no trace of pretentiousness. "It is," Mulligan observed in a Gertrude Stein mood, "what it is." There's the gently loping Bunny (a Mulligan reference to Hodges' nickname); Mulligan's superior ballad, What's The Rush, which indicates, by the way, Mulligan's marked growth in this area of composition; the finger-snapping Back Beat; the classic ease of What It's All About which, like the rest of the album, underlines the major stature Mulligan's own playing has now achieved; the crisp byplay of 18 Carrots for Rabbit; and finally, the infectiously autumnal Shady Side.

Mulligan intends to continue the series, and I hope he leaves space for a return conversation with Johnny Hodges. This first one represents a rarely consistent recorded program that won't be dated until jazz itself is.