The Mulligan Strain

To provide harmonic guidance, bands in early jazz, swing and bebop included banjos, guitars or pianos. There were exceptions, notably some of the New Orleans bands that rode in the beds of trucks or marched for funerals and parades, That practice continues with outfits as traditional as the Onward and Olympia brass bands and as up to date as the Dirty Dozen. In general, though, after 1930, as jazz became more and more a soloist's art, players depended on pianists or guitarists to supply the chordal basis for improvisation.

The harmonic aspect of bop was often complex, even unto altered changes for the most basic material--the blues and pieces based on simple standard songs like "I Got Rhythm" and "Oh, Lady Be Good." When the baritone saxophonist and arranger Gerry Mulligan unveiled a band without a chording instrument, it seemed to some listeners incomplete. Others thought it brought openness and freshness to a music that had grown increasingly involved and demanding. Mulligan's quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker, bassist Carson Smith and drummer Chico Hamilton was a popular success in the pre-rock-and-roll early 1950s, and came to have a lasting influence in the music. Before the decade was out, Ornette Coleman was further reducing dependence on chording instruments, in fact on chords themselves, with instrumentation identical to Mulligan's save that Coleman played alto rather than baritone sax. Groups patterning themselves on Mulligan's emerged through the years. Paul Desmond's quartet with guitarist Jim Hall and later with Ed Bickert may have been the most successful.

Fascination with the Mulligan quartet and its achievements continues in the new century. Three fairly recent CDs make the point. Trumpeter John McNeil's East Coast Cool (Omnitone) is the newest and most experimental, taking Mulligan's concept beyond conventional song-form harmony into freedom that often verges on Coleman territory. He includes only one piece, "Bernie's Tune," from Mulligan's repertoire. In it, he expands the famous introductory triplet phrase by half, then doubles it, takes the bridge into waltz time and elasticizes the meter in the improvised choruses. The metric foolery in this and other selections is possible not only by way of McNeil's celebrated instrumental and cerebral virtuosity, but also that of baritone saxophonist Alan Chase, bassist John Hebert and the magical drummer Matt Wilson.

The rest of the twelve pieces, except for Kenny Berger's Mulligan-like "GAB," are by McNeil. Some have what sound (deceptively) like conventional chord changes. Some seem to have none, but depend on rhythmic regularity. Throughout, there is a large dollop of McNeil's wryness and wit, but they never overwhelm his musicality. "A Time To Go," which apparently means to poke fun at the conventions of accessible melodicism in the West Coast Jazz of the 1950s, is nonetheless melodic and accessible. "Delusions" alternates between sections of uplift and menace and features amazing extended press-roll dynamics by Wilson.

Two duets by McNeil and Chase sound totally improvised, but with McNeil you can't always be certain what is worked out and what is off the cuff. In "Duet #2," the trumpet discreetly uses what I presume to be tape-loop echo while Chase, closely miked, manipulates the saxophone's keys without blowing into the instrument, producing a hollow effect something like that of the drums called boo-bams. The track is intriguing and judiciously short; too much of this would have been precious. Other highlights: a piece called "Schoenberg's Piano Concerto," built of twelve-tone rows, also brief and effective; a truly beautiful semi-free ballad called "Wanwood;" and "Waltz Helios," which is wistful and touching. McNeil extends Mulligan's concept into regions of free and modal jazz without going so far out as to lose the cogency or the sense of fun that helped make Mulligan's quartet a model upon which to buld.

News From Blueport by the Andy Panayi Quartet (Woodville Records) closely observes the Mulligan ethos and repertoire. With trombonist Mark Nightingale, bassist Simon Woolf and drummer Steve Brown, baritone saxophonist Panayi approximates the edition of the Mulligan quartet that had Bob Brookmeyer on trombone. Veterans of British studios and jazz clubs, they achieve the Mulligan-Brookmeyer blend. Except in short stretches of Bill Crow's title tune, the band does not deviate from straight time or leave conventional harmonic arenas. Yet, it is not a mere replication of the Mulligan group. However skillfully Panayi has adapted certain of Mulligan's mannerisms, he occasionally departs into growls, honks and slurs that announce his individuality.

Nightingale plays the slide trombone, not the valve version of which Brookmeyer is the undefeated champion. A precisionist of the J.J. Johnson school, he nonetheless glories in his instrument's ability to whoop and holler. The tune list is predominantly from the Mulligan book--"Blueport," "Line for Lyons," "Sun on the Stairs," "Festive Minor" and others--but it also has nice changes of pace in Jimmy Rowles' "The Peacocks," Pepper Adams' "Reflectory" and "Em 'N En," a Nightingale line based on "There Will Never Be Another You." Woolf and Brown are new to me. Their work in support is admirable, and Woolf demonstrates both ardor and technique, including plenty of double stops, in his bass solos. This is a Mulligan tribute album that will introduce many non-Britains to four impressive musicians. This CD seems to be hard to find in the U.S. The link above is to a British seller.

The Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava's Full Of Life (CamJazz) also embraces Mulligan, but with more subtlety than the Payani group and less overt adventuresomeness than McNeil's. Rava is one of many European trumpeters influenced by Chet Baker and Miles Davis. He also has some of the free radical genes of players like Kenny Wheeler and Don Cherry. Javier Girotto is the baritone saxophonist. Although his soloing is more elliptical than Mulligan's, and he works within a narrower dynamic range, when he and Rava heat up their counterpoint on "Surrey With the Fringe on Top," they achieve a symbiosis remarkably like that of Mulligan and Baker.

The CD contains no Mulligan compositions, but Rava pays tribute with "Moonlight in Vermont," using the essential outline of Mulligan's famous version with Baker. It is a langourous, reflective, enchanting performance, but "Nature Boy" outdoes it for sheer passion that reaches the simmering intensity of slow flamenco in Rava's solo and in Girotto's on soprano saxophone. As for the rest of the tunes, Rava's and Girotto's originals are as intriguing as some of their titles; "Boston April 15th," as an example, "Happiness is to Win a Big Prize in Cash" as another. Those pieces, "Miss MG," "Full of Life," "Visions" and "Mystere" have harmonic structures that inspire lovely solos from both horns and, often, daring ones from Rava. Like Kenny Wheeler, he is prone to making surprising interval leaps into the stratosphere without sacrificing his lyricism.

Bassist Ares Ravolazzi and drummer Fabrizio Sferra present further evidence that superb rhythm section players are everywhere in Europe these days. Full of Life is an apt title for this consistently satisfying album.