Five-Star Collection... Konitz and Mulligan

 Lee Konitz

And

The Gerry Mulligan Quartet

"With creative extemporization one cannot be consistent" avers Lee. "We are striving and improving".

"The most inventive improvisation comes only when conditions are compelling" Gerry will tell you.

Great jazz necessitates the right atmosphere. The right time, the right place, the right players, the right mental attunement — these things are essential for effusive emotional expression and stimulating swing.

For Konitz, too, there must be the intimacy of a small group.

"Soloing with a big band — the same things happening in the same places — they disturb the fluency and flow of expression" Lee asserts.

For these recordings we had just the right atmosphere. The majority of the performances were recorded on the spot at the Haig, Hollywood's jazz mecca. The conditions were just right. Bassist Carson Smith and drummer Larry Bunker gave sympathetic support. The articulate Chet Baker sparked with some of his most engaging and intriguing trumpet patterns. And we think we captured some of the most inspiring conceptions to date of Konitz and Mulligan.

"Konitz — a cool, calculating, controlled cat" say some critics.

Nonsense.

Listen yourself. It's not cool Konitz. It's cool critics. Critics without soul. Critics without feeling. Critics without understanding.

For this is emotional music above all. It's the assured, facile, masterful expressions of highly sensitive yet forceful people. Lee, Gerry and Chet blow long logical lyrical lines that are sincere and direct expressions.

And this music assuredly swings — not in a banal way, but with the subtle insinuation of a real and natural drive. *Howard Lucraft (fom the liner notes)*

These Foolish Things

Broadway

Too Marvelous For Words

Almost Like Being In Love

★★★★★

More sides made by Lee with the Mulligan quartet in January, 1953. Like the first set, they are among the best sides yet released by either Lee or the former Mulligan unit.

Lee handles most of the solo space with sustained linear invention, and the frequent interweaving of the three horns provides an absorbingly invigorating texture.

Lee has rarely had his ideas and tone so relaxedly under control. (Things and Too Marvelous are perhaps the most eloquent examples). Gerry and Chet are also at imaginative ease. On the last band, either the tape wavered or Chet's flat in the ensemble. That point aside, this is an impressive collaboration. (Pacific Jazz EP 4-11) *Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, March 10, 1954)

Too Marvelous For Words

I Can't Get Started

Almost Like Being In Love

These Foolish Things

Broadway

My Old Flame

Five Brothers

★★★★★

The titling of the set is slightly misleading. The four numbers on which Konitz joined with the Mulligan quartet have already appeared as an EP and were so reviewed (Down Beat, March 10). To fill out an LP, three numbers of the quartet alone were added. The five-star rating on the Konitz-Mulligan interplay still stands for reasons already noted. The quartet as such with Baker, Smith and Bunker performs with its usual calm proficiency.

Being fairly sated with this kind of low-keyed coolness, I would have given the three quartet sides a star less. But on the majority rule principle, we'll call it five. Howard Lucraft's notes are as intense a set as has appeared in some time. Easy, Howard, easy. There's still the H-bomb to worry about, too. The interestingly linear abstract cover is by William Claxton. (Pacific Jazz PJ LP-10)

*Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, June 2, 1954)*

Side 1

1 - Too Marvelous For Words

(Richard A. Whiting, Johnny Mercer) 

2 - I Can't Get Started

(Vernon Duke)

3 - Almost Like Being In Love

(Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner)

Side 2

4 - These Foolish Things

(Harry Link, Jack Strachey, Albert Eric Maschwitz)

5 - Broadway

(Wilbur H. Bird, Teddy McRae, Henri Woode)

6 - My Old Flame

(Arthur Johnston, Sam Coslow)

7 - Five Brothers

(Gerry Mulligan)

#1, #4:

Chet Baker (trumpet), Lee Konitz (alto sax), Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax),

Carson Smith (bass), Larry Bunker (drums).

Recorded at The Haig, Hollywood, California, January 23, 1953

#3, #5:

Chet Baker (trumpet), Lee Konitz (alto sax), Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax),

Carson Smith (bass), Larry Bunker (drums).

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, January 30, 1953

#6:

Chet Baker (trumpet), Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax),

Carson Smith (bass), Larry Bunker (drums).

Recorded at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles, California, April 27, 1953

#2, #7:

Chet Baker (trumpet), Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax),

Carson Smith (bass), Larry Bunker (drums).

Recorded at The Haig, Hollywood, California, May 20, 1953