To compensate for lateness in posting a birthday tribute to Gerry Mulligan (1927-1996), the Rifftides staff is pleased to bring you videos of Mulligan from three stages of his career.
First, we find him at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 with his quartet; Mulligan, baritone saxophone; Art Farmer, trumpet; Bill Crow, bass. This seems to be a clip from Bert Stern’s film Jazz on a Summer’s Day. The closing announcement is by Gerry’s friend Willis Conover of the Voice of America. The piece is “As Catch Can.â€
In the early 1960s, bossa nova was becoming an important element in jazz and popular music in the United States. One of its founding fathers, Antonio Carlos Jobim, spent a fair amount of time in this country. He visited Mulligan in his apartment in New York and gave him a lesson in phrasing Brazilian rhythm
In 1992, Mulligan took an edition of his tentet to the Vienna Festival in France. Farmer was with him, along with Lee Konitz, Rob McConnell, Michael Phillip Mossman, Kenny Soderblum, Bob Routch, Bill Barber, Ted Rosenthal, Dean Johnson and Ron Vincent. Ignore the “Lee Konitz†super over a shot of Farmer soloing. A superimposed crawl at the end identifies everyone and his instrument. The composition is by one of Gerry’s heroes. Konitz copiously alludes to other Ellington pieces.
We’re missing Mulligan.
Have a good weekend.