Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music

by Gerry Mulligan, Ken Poston (Editor)

Overview

Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music is an intimate chronicle of Gerry Mulligan’s life and career, told in his own words. This personal narrative reveals great insight into the musician’s complex personality. He speaks freely about the important milestones in both his personal and professional life, bringing a new understanding to the man behind the music.

Gerry Mulligan was one of the most important figures in the history of jazz. He was extremely influential as both a composer/arranger and as an instrumentalist. His career spanned an amazing six decades, beginning in the 1940s and continuing up to his death in 1996. Within that time, he worked with almost every major jazz figure, including Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as his own illustrious groups that featured the likes of Chet Baker, Bob Brookmeyer, Art Farmer, and Chico Hamilton.

As a composer, his music was distinct and original. His melodies were masterpieces, logically structured and filled with wit and humor. As an arranger, his linear approach and clever use of counterpoint helped define a new standard for modern jazz orchestration. As an instrumentalist, he is the most significant baritone saxophonist in the history of jazz. Gerry Mulligan single-handedly established the baritone saxophone as a solo voice. As one of the great jazz innovators, his writing and playing influenced entire stylistic movements, including cool jazz and bossa nova. This is his story, the way he wanted it told.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493064823
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	1,055,451
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Gerry Mulligan learned to play piano when he was two and sold his first arrangement when he was sixteen, beginning his six-decade career as a composer, arranger, saxophonist, and conductor. Mulligan traveled the world for his music and won countless awards, including a Grammy Award in 1981 for “Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Big Band.” His album, Birth of the Cool, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1982. The Gerry and Franca Mulligan Foundation was established in 2001 after his death in 1996 to fulfill his wish to support talented young musicians and inner-city schools.

Table of Contents

Introduction Franca Mulligan vii

Preface ix

1 One to Ten in Ohio 1

2 Ohio Traveler 11

3 On the Road with Tommy Tucker 25

4 On the Air with Elliot Lawrence 33

5 "Disc Me? Jump" 43

6 Claude and Gil 60

7 The Fifth of the Cool 69

8 Utter Chaos: Heroin and Turmoil 85

9 Gail Madden and Creative Research 96

10 Leavin' Town: New York to Los Angeles 104

11 "Young Blood": Writing for Stan Kenton 110

12 The Pianoless Quartet 120

13 Adventures on the West Coast 128

14 The Tentet: Further Explorations with the Birth of the Cool 135

15 The Sheriff's Honor Farm and Goodbye Chet 139

16 "Walking Shoes": Leaving Hollywood 148

17 Presenting the Gerry Mulligan Sextet 153

18 Addiction and Treatment 163

19 1957-1959: A Hectic Schedule 171

20 Alec Wilder and the Algonquin Hotel 185

21 Subterranean Blues: Back to Hollywood 191

22 The Concert Jazz Band 207

23 Theme for Jobim 222

24 Holliday with Mulligan 226

25 Song for an Unfinished Woman 238

26 It's Sandy at the Beach 244

27 Social and Political Changes in the 1960s 251

28 Compares. The Saxophonist Who Came to Dinner 262

29 The Age of Steam and Meeting Franca 265

30 Happy Birthday 1974 275

31 Reunion with Chet, La Menace, and Goodbye Charlie 281

32 Étude for Franca 292

33 "Entente for Baritone Saxophone and Orchestra" 302

34 "Bright Angel Falls" 309

35 Music, Freedom, and Race 315

36 The Quartet 320

Index 323