Customer Reviews

Gerry Mulligan Quartet featuring Chet Baker

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This CD is a compilation of two separate recording sessions, one led by Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker on trumpet, the other by the Chubby Jackson Big Band. Half the Mulligan-Baker quartet material was recorded at the Black Hawk in San Francisco in September 1952, the other half four months later in LA. The personnel remains the same for both. The two horn men, along with Carson Smith (b) and Chico Hamilton (d) were laying down the foundation of what soon would be referred to as West Coast or Cool jazz, a sound just as swinging as its East coast rival, but tempered somewhat by a more introspective rhythm approach (the use of brushes over sticks by the drummer, for example) and in the case of this group, no piano. Many who disparage West Coast jazz make the claim that it was cold, pensive, and unswinging, which makes one wonder if such people ever really listened to the music. Such tunes as BARK FOR BARKSDALE, TURNSTILE, and LIMELIGHT are modern dynamos, far from retiring wallflowers. Baker, who supposedly couldn't read music, is truly inspired on these early sides.

The Jackson sides were recorded at one session for Prestige in 1950 in New York and feature an all-star modern big band, including Mulligan (bar sax) Howard McGhee (tp) Zoot Sims (ts) JJ Johnson (tb) and Jackson (b) among many other top players. Best might be the up-tempo rouser FLYING THE COOP, written by Tiny Kahn, a performance that sets the band off well, especially Sims and Johnson. I MAY BE WRONG is also a great tune done to perfection here, thanks to Mulligan's playing and arranging.

The music on this CD is fresh and exciting. The playing is top-notch. This is a must-have CD for anyone interested in modern jazz, especially during its earlier years.

Although the legendary 1952-3 Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker Quartet made most of its recordings for the Pacific Jazz label, a handful of its performances (including the studio version of its signature number, "My Funny Valentine") were released on Fantasy Records, and are thus excluded from the double-disc Pacific Jazz retrospective GERRY MULLIGAN - The ORIGINAL QUARTET With CHET BAKER. Fortunately, they're all available on this budget-conscious reissue, which is filled out with a 1950 date from Mulligan's tenure with bassist Chubby Jackson. While not in the same league as the epochal tracks making up the first half of the disc, this earlier session is solid, enjoyable and a rare chance to hear Mulligan's baritone saxophone playing and arrangements during the period immediately following his stint in Miles Davis' famed nonet. Needless to say, no "cool" jazz collection can omit this oddball little package, and no one interested in Mulligan and/or Baker will want to pass it up either.

This is a great collection of recordings featuring Gerry Mulligan. The quartet portion is, as stated above, Mulligan-Baker-Smith-Hamilton. The big band tracks that round out the album are performed by Don Ferrara, Howard McGhee, Al Porcino (tp) J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding (tb) Charlie Kennedy (as) Georgie Auld, Zoot Sims (ts) Gerry Mulligan (bars) Tony Aless (p) Chubby Jackson (b) Don Lamond (d). The problem with the cover is that it lists Conte Candoli and Billy Bauer as being on the cd, which they are not. Candoli and Bauer were on the sextet tracks that comprised the rest of the original release of this material on LP, Chubby Jackson Sextet and Big Band[PR7641] along with Emmett Carls (ts) Tony Aless (p) Chubby Jackson (b, vo) Mel Zelnick (d) The Three Nundicks: Candoli, Carls, Jackson (vocal group).

The redoubtable folks at OJC did this music a disservice with the awful cover design. Instead of following their usual practice of reproducing the original cover art, they have reduced the cover art of this album to an inset and then added this really awful typography. It's even in error, as guitarist Billy Bauer is nowhere in evidence on these sides. Venturing within, the disc draws additional suspicion by bringing together two VERY different sets of music, united only by the participation of Gerry Mulligan. All these quibbles aside, this music is tremendous. The first half of the disc are the original Fantasy Records sides from 1952 by the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker, Carson Smith, and Chico Hamilton. This music is justifiably legendary. Baker plays sublimely with none of his later intonation problems, and he and Mulligan mix into a very smooth musical cocktail. But what really makes these tunes fizz is the rather miraculous drumming of Chico Hamilton. He adds an array of textures to this pianoless quartet that'll leave you giddy. And the sound quality of these sides, some recorded in mono with just a single microphone, is simply astonishing. They're right in the room with you, sixty years on. Moving onto the second half of the disc, we are suddenly immersed in the big band maelstrom of largely forgotten bassist/band leader Chubby Jackson, leading an early supergroup of sorts, a swinging but boppish big band recording in 1949-50 in the ilk of the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra. Mulligan is the arranger of a couple of tunes and a soloist on a couple others but hardly the focus of this set, which also includes Zoot Sims, J.J. Johnson, Howard McGhee, Kai Winding and a host of your favourite stars. This stuff doesn't belong together, but it's generously packaged together by OJC and sure to move you.