Gerry Mulligan, trad jazz?

[lipi]

I've read somewhere (and I can't for the life of me remember where) that Mulligan played a fair bit of traditional/dixieland/pre-war-ish/... jazz, and I know he played with Armstrong and Ellington at festivals sometimes.

Is any of this recorded, and, if so, can you recommend a CD or two to start me off? I don't dig the West Coast cool school, but I sure would like to hear some more swinging baritone (outside of Carney, Caceres, and Fowlkes). I have heard the 1958 Monterey dates of Billie Holiday, but something where Mulligan's featured more would be great.

[brownie]

Mulligan is one of the guests on this excellent Jack Teagarden CD recorded at the 1963 Monterey jazz festival

He solos on a number of tracks and duels with Pee Wee Russell on 'Pee Wee's ad Gerry's Blues'!

[BillF]

Mulligan certainly had an ear for trad/dixieland; you can hear this in the otherwise ultra-cool "Cherry" by the classic Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker. It's interesting to ponder whether his fondness for counterpoint owed something to the multi-lined approach of dixieland, though counterpoint was, of course, a pretty standard feature of the West Coast school. Mulligan also came to be accepted as a stalwart of the 1950s mainstream giants of jazz. In the famous CBS "Sound of Jazz" television broadcast, he lines up with Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Ben Webster to back Billie Holliday. Norman Granz's pairings of him with Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges are likely to appeal to you:

The aspect of Mulligan you refer to came as quite a revelation to me. I knew him first in the 50s from the Birth of the Cool sessions and the Quartet with Chet Baker and saw him as the epitome of cool. I would never have imagined him playing with Hodges or Webster! But we came to find that Mulligan had depths we hadn't realised!

Edited July 25, 2010 by BillF

[jlhoots]

I believe the sextet albums have a "trad" feel to them.

[JSngry]

I've heard Mulligan's "classic" stuff referred to as "Bopsieland".

[Big Beat Steve]

One image that always baffled me is a picture in "Eddie Condon's Scrapbook of Jazz" that shows a 50s get-together at Condons' when the regular Condonites (including Wild Bill Davison a.o.) were joined by Gerry Mulligan, Bob Brookmeyer and Don Elliott for an after-hours session. No doubt a setting that was much more "traditional" (in the stricter sense of the word) than anything mainstreamish done with Ben Webster or Johnny Hodges. Wonder if any of these get-togethers were ever recorded.

[AllenLowe]

remember that Mulligan was known as a dedicated sitter-inner and liked to play with everybody. So it's no real surprise to see him in all these situations.

[Ted O'Reilly]

Mulligan was a very good clarinet player, and if you think of clarinet as a "dixieland" horn... (Of course, there are those who think Pee Wee Russell was a "dixieland" player).

Kenny Davern was playing at a Barrelhouse session at the Bern Jazz Festival some years back, and Mulligan was there digging it all. Off-stage, Davern asked Mujlligan if he wanted to sit in, but he demurred, being hornless. But Gerry started talking about clarinet, with Mulligan saying he was using it to keep his chops up without bothering neighbours with the louder baritone.

[lipi]

Thanks guys! That Teagarden disc looks particularly good.

[Brad]

I also love the Hodges disc.