I discovered Gerry Mulligan because of a customer I had back in 2002 where i worked. He was a really old guy and he said he was Gerry Mulligan and that he played on Broadway. I was interested to see him play so i looked up Gerry Mulligan only to find out that he died in 1996 and the old guy was lying to me! lol. ah well, well worth the discovery!
Such a unique sound. Wonderfully "stuffy", "throaty", "sweet", and full of beautiful overtones. I have never heard any other baritone saxophonist with such an exquisite sound as Gerry Mulligan. We are so fortunate to have access to his many audio and video recordings.
I saw him twice. The first time was in '63 at Royce Hall at UCLA. Bob Brookmeyer, on valve trombone, was the second horn. Before the show started, I observed a piano off to one side of the stage. I thought that someone had really screwed up, because of Mulligan's famous pianoless quartets. After the show started, and several tunes had been played, Gerry put his horn in a stand, walked over to the piano, sat down, and played the piano for about three songs, then he went back to where he had left his horn and continued without an explanation. Then, Brookmeyer put HIS horn in a stand, walked over to the piano, sat down, and played for about three more tunes. A magical night: A Gerry Mulligan pianoless quartet with a fugging PIANO (Actually, there were TWO pianos, just not at the same time.) The second time was in '74 at Howard Rumsey's Concerts by the Sea.
my sax teacher /mentor is always telling me stories about him. he's 90 this year and he once played with GM himself , and both of them are true legends. I recently sold my conn bari and got a new jupiter 900 series and theres an amazing ease to play it and the sound is fantastic and louder than the old conn i had.
@@fatalbasshd7987 lol you're funny, Leo P has mastered a flashy trick, but can only use the same handful of licks in improvising. Take time to listen to 5+ of his recordings, you'll realise how little he really knows. The reason why he seems like the only one who can do that overtone trick is because many people, including college student friends of mine, can do it but it doesn't add anything to being able to improvise.
@@fatalbasshd7987 Umm...Doc Kupka? Dennis DiBlasio? Ronnie Cuber? Bruce Jonstone? That's just a few who are ten times better than Leo. He's good, but not "the best".
cmon guys, let's just say that any baritone sax player is best baritone sax player no doubt [well, from the artists that i've heard so far, though it's been a long time lol]
honsetly.....who doesnt want to be like mulligan. lol. he's the undisputed master of baritone sax. i dont want to get you down on your dream, but now-a-days, its really hard to make it as a solo artist like mulligan. most people now-a-days, play gigs for hire. and occasionally their own gig. few people in this day and age make it as a solo artist.
Broadcast from the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) “Jazz Club,” Stuttgart, West Germany, 01 MAR 1987 (West Germany at the time, for reunification of Germany was on 03 OCT 1990) The “club” was merely an audience in the TV studio at the time, probable invited guests. TV 3sat rebroadcast this Jazz on Tour program later on as All That Jazz in 2001. :I:
Most pictures we see of him are with a Conn New wonder II, more a Chu Berry than a naked lady 10M. I think he played mostly a Chu. The neck is larger than french horns.
I saw my dad struggle with the weight of the Tenor in his later years ( he had arthritis in the neck) You would want to be in tip-top shape to play a bari as you get older! but then, you could always switch to alto, they are both Eb horns. ;-)
@@hirokokueh3541 Gerry started the pianoless quartets for ONE reason: He felt that a piano was a whole orchestra, by itself, thus making it too easy to craft a sound.
