This day (January 20, 1996), in Darien, Connecticut, died Gerry Mulligan, an American jazz baritone saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger.

Gerry Mulligan: A Jazz Innovator

Gerry Mulligan was a prominent baritone player, young, white, and handsome, with a new sound, and several factors contributed to his breakthrough.

He was able to express his neurotic tendencies in public.

He was egocentric yet likable, which was part of his star charisma.

Mulligan was a white musician who created his own style in jazz, a genre dominated by Black musicians.

He brought a light sound to the baritone saxophone and introduced jazz to a new generation of fans.

He defined the sound and style of the early 1950s.

He played a cool style of music that was somewhat opposed to the complexity and rigor of bebop, which was very appealing, especially to young people who found the previous music a bit complicated.

He was attractive, tall, thin, red-haired, and very introverted on stage but less so off stage.

The fact that he was white played in his favor, particularly in California.

Jazz Cool vs. Bebop

Marketers contrasted the West Coast cool jazz, performed by white musicians, with East Coast bebop, performed by Black musicians.

Yet, two of the leading figures of cool jazz were Black musicians: John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet and Miles Davis.

The divide between white and Black jazz, as well as between the East and West Coast, is therefore not relevant.

Early Life and Rise

Mulligan was born in New York in 1927.

He began as a composer and arranger with big bands on the East Coast, but his music became the sound of jazz that emerged on the opposite coast over 20 years later.

Cool sound and cool jazz were born in Los Angeles in the 1950s.

The focal point of this movement was the quartet of Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan without a piano, which was deliberately quieter and more controlled.

This style of jazz became associated with the West Coast sunshine and the idea of people moving more slowly.

All this became synonymous with sunshine and Hollywood flair.

Chet Baker, with his James Dean looks, and Gerry Mulligan, with his Jerry Lewis hairstyle and cool clothing, contributed to the image.

It was very Hollywood, very 1950s.

A cool fashion style and manner of speaking developed from this cool and laid-back musical style.

People began to see jazz as something “hip” or cool.

At this time, jazz musicians were starting to become celebrities, and the media took an interest in personalities like Gerry Mulligan.

The Baritone Revolution

Although very photogenic, it was his catchy music and new baritone sound that won over fans.

The baritone was the “ugly duckling” of the saxophone family, tasked with playing low notes in big bands, until Mulligan gave it its own light voice.

Mulligan was the first to popularize it as a solo instrument.

His style was largely based on Lester Young, who was quite cool, laid-back, and relaxed but sometimes added rhythmic aggression.

Young is considered one of the early architects of the cool sound.

Mulligan adopted this same melodic, floating style but transferred it to the baritone.

Playing the baritone well requires a strong jaw and a lot of control over the instrument.

The Birth of Cool

In this era, Mulligan’s music was highly controlled: intonation was precisely exact, and pieces were composed with very decisive chord progressions.

There was a sense of control, relaxation, “hipness,” a bit of alienation, but also mastery.

The style was laid-back and sensual, although some found it lacking emotion.

New York was the birthplace of the cool movement, where the legendary group Birth of the Cool was formed in 1948.

This group of nine musicians blended classical music techniques with jazz, forming what was essentially a jazz chamber orchestra.

The group was led by trumpeter Miles Davis, with Jerry Mulligan on baritone.

Other members included composer Gil Evans and saxophonist Lee Konitz.

Mulligan did most of the writing but didn’t receive all the credits and was upset when things didn’t go as planned.

He was highly musical and crucial to the group’s success.

West Coast Fame

The group Birth of the Cool disbanded after a few recordings, but Mulligan used this experience to form other chamber groups later.

After losing his job, Mulligan hitchhiked out of New York and headed to the West Coast in 1952, where his luck would change.

The American West Coast was the center of the new cool school of music in the early 1950s.

It was there in 1952 that Mulligan met the handsome trumpeter Chet Baker and formed a chamber group, a quartet, with the original idea of playing without a piano.

The quartet came about by accident when they found themselves playing on a small stage without a piano, and the success was immediate.

Time magazine published an article about them, and overnight, everyone was talking about Gerry Mulligan’s quartet.

Chet Baker had a certain movie-star glamour.

Challenges and Innovations

Mulligan’s quartet with Baker lasted only a year, but his decision to put aside the piano, which was the main harmonic instrument in jazz orchestras, became a style he continued with other chamber groups.

There were only the trumpet, baritone, a bassist, and a drummer, which meant there was no harmony in the music—only melodic lines.

The bassist’s role was to play a note on each beat that established the basic harmonic structure of the song, upon which the two wind instruments could build their own melodies and counter-lines.

The two wind instruments had a dialogue with each other rather than a dialogue with the rhythm section.

No one had made this kind of sound before; it was completely new.

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Photo : Il Fatto Quotidiano