© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Dear Steve,
“Thanks so much for sending and, indeed, for composing your opus on GM. You did an extraordinary job of finding obscure and illuminating pieces that would otherwise never be seen and which fully represent Jeru as man and musician. It’s the kind of book that you dare not open unless you’ve got time to spare because it’s impossible to stop flipping through and getting ambushed by pieces you never expected. I hope it gets the attention and readership it deserves.”
Best,
Gary Giddins
With the holiday season upon us, I hope you will consider making a gift of The Gerry Mulligan Reader: Select Writings on a Jazz Original to the Jazz fans among your family and friends.
It is available exclusively through Amazon.com and, given that it offers 355 pages of information about Gerry and his music, I have priced it very reasonably at $25.99 for the paperback and $9.99 for an eBook.
To give you some idea of the breadth and depth of the writings on offer in the anthology, some of which are extremely rare, I am posting the book’s Table of Contents for you to look over.
Also, please keep in mind that I am sharing 50% of the profits from the sale of the book with The Gerry and Franca Mulligan Foundation for the purchase of musical instruments for individual students and school music programs.
Happy Holidays to you and yours from The Cerra Family.
“A man is all the people he has been.”
Goodbye Darkness, A Memoir of the Pacific War
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – THE 1940’s:
BOP; BIG BANDS; BIRTH OF THE COOL
Peter Clayton, Insert Notes to Gene Krupa Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements. [Verve MGVS 6008] and [World Record Club LP release [TP 351]
George T. Simon, Insert Notes to Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan
Arrangements. [Fantasy F-3 206; OJCCD-117-2]
Gerry Mulligan with Ken Poston, “Claude Thornhill, Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan: Three of a Mind – from CLAUDE AND GIL” in Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music. [2023]
Ira Gitler, Jeru and Bird, from Swing to Bop to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940s. [1985]
Peter Welding/Gerry Mulligan Insert Notes to CD Reissue Birth of the Cool. [Capitol Jazz CDP 7 92862 2]
Chapter 2 -THE 1950s:
THE QUARTETS, TENTETTE, AND SEXTETS; THE “MEETS” LPs;
OVERVIEW: Joe Goldberg, Gerry Mulligan, Jazz Masters of the 1950s. [1965]
Steven A. Cerra, “Gerry Mulligan and Stan Kenton – Opposites That Didn’t Attract Excerpts from the Jazz Literature.”
Gordon Jack, Interviews with Gerry Mulligan and the following members of the 1952-53 Gerry Mulligan Quartet featuring Chet Baker: bassists Bob Whitlock and Carson Smith; drummers Chico Hamilton and Larry Bunker in Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective. [2004]
Will MacFarland, Mulligan – The Sound Alone, Theme Magazine, January, 1954.
Herb Kimmel, Mulligan – The Man Behind the Sound [An Unpublished Rejoinder to Will MacFarland sent to Jimmy Valentine, publisher/editor of Theme Magazine].
Arlene [Arlyne] Mulligan, Make Mine Mulligan, Theme Magazine, March, 1954.
Gordon Jack, Arlyne Brown Mulligan and Gerry Mulligan. [May 16, June 20, July 25, 2019, Jazz Journal]
Gerry Mulligan, “Gerry Mulligan Tells – The Importance of Jazz Tradition.” [Downbeat, September 21,1955]
Peter Welding – The Complete Pacific Jazz and Capitol Recordings of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and Tentette with Chet Baker. [Excerpts from the Insert Booklet notes to Mosaic Records, MR 5-102]
Matthew Ruddick, Chapter 4, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet in The Life and Times of Chet Baker. [2012]
Michael Cuscuna, Konitz Meets Mulligan: Lee Konitz and The Gerry Mulligan Quartet. [Pacific Jazz LP PJM 406 and Capitol CD CDP 7 46847 2]
Alun Morgan, The Fabulous Gerry Mulligan Sextet. [Insert Booklet notes Fresh Sound Records FSRCD 418-419]
Gordon Jack, The Gerry Mulligan Sextet, Jazz Journal 3/2016.
Michael Cuscuna, Insert Notes to Reunion: Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker. [Pacific Jazz Series 1957 CDP 7 46857 2]
Gordon Jack, Gerry Mulligan Quartet – Newport Rarities from 1957. [intended as sleeve notes for a never released CD; submitted to Jazz Journal, as yet unpublished]
Raymond Horricks, Gerry Mulligan and the“MEETS” LPs, in Gerry Mulligan: Jazz Masters Series. [1986]
Gordon Jack, Stan and Gerry: Occasional Collaborators, Jazz Journal 10/2017.
Chapter 3 – THE 1960s:
THE BLINDFOLD TESTS; THE CONCERT JAZZ BAND; BRU & JERU – COMPADRES WITH BRUBECK
OVERVIEW: Nat Hentoff, Gerry Mulligan, The White Mainstreamer, Jazz Is. [1991] and The New Yorker [3/21 and 3/28, 1959]
Leonard Feather, Before and After, Gerry Mulligan, Down Beat May 26, 1960 and June 9, 1960.
Leonard Feather, “Mulligan Stew,” – Gerry Mulligan Blindfold Test, Down Beat, November 14, 1957.
Leonard Feather, “Gerry Mulligan – The May 26,1960 Down Beat Blindfold Test.”
Robert Gordon, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet in Concert –[1957 and 1962]. [Insert notes to Pablo PACD-5309-2]
Leonard Feather, Harry Carney and Gerry Mulligan – Two of a Kind, Blindfold Test, Down Beat, November 18, 1965.
Bill Crow, Gerry Mulligan, From Birdland to Broadway: Scene from a Jazz Life. [1992]
Bill Kirchner, Booklet Notes to Mosaic Records “The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band Sessions. [MD4-221]
Bert Vuijsje, Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band: Young Blood Live in Amsterdam 1960. [Netherlands National Jazz Archives NJA CD – 1902]
Gordon Jack, Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, JazzJournal September 7, 2021.
Gerry Mulligan and Judy Holliday as Told By Gene Lees from Meet Me at Jim and Andy’s. [1988]
Jerome Klinkowitz, Compadres with Gerry Mulligan, Listen Gerry Mulligan: An Aural Narrative. [1991]
Chapter 4 – THE 1970s:
THE AGE OF STEAM; THE 1974 REUNION WITH CHET BAKER; THE RECONSTITUTED CONCERT JAZZ BAND
Steven A. Cerra, “Gerry Mulligan at Mid-Career, The 1970’s and Onward.”
Gerry Mulligan with Ken Poston- “The Age of Steam: A Turning Point.” Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music. [2023]
Michael Cuscuna, Booklet Notes to The Age of Steam, A&M CD, Artist House Music DVD.
Steven A. Cerra, “Gerry Mulligan – Chet Baker 1974 Carnegie Hall Concert: Some Personal and Professional Perspectives.”
Steven A. Cerra, Gerry Mulligan’s European Period aka The Mulligan Renaissance.
Richard Cook, “Gerry Mulligan – The Elusive Giant,” Jazz Review, October, 2001.
Richard Brown, “Gerry Mulligan, Cool Charts Bearish Tone, Down Beat, June 7, 1979.
Chapter 5 – THE 1980s:
WALK ON WATER; LITTLE BIG HORN; SYMPHONIC MULLIGAN; MORE CJB; QUARTETS WITH PIANO
Steven A. Cerra, Mulligan in the 1980’s, Busier than Ever, Meeting New Challenges.
Les Tomkins, “Gerry Mulligan: My Approach to the Orchestra,” Crescendo International, June/July, 1985.
Richard Cook, “Gerry Mulligan, Big Band, Baritone and Beard, The Wire, No. 25, 1986.
Michael Bourne, Gerry Mulligan, Singing a Song of Mulligan, Down Beat, January 1989.
Chapter 6 -THE 1990s:
REBIRTH OF THE COOL; DOWN BEAT HALL OF FAME; OBITUARY
Steven A. Cerra, “Gerry Mulligan, ‘Rebirth of the Cool’ – 1991 – A Collective Overview.”
Steven A. Cerra, “Into the 1990s – Gerry Mulligan and the Piano Quartets.”
Gordon Jack, After You Jeru, [On the 50th Anniversary of the Original Gerry Mulligan Quartet], March 22, 2002, JazzJournal.
Mitchell Seidel, “Mulligan Enters the Hall of Fame,” Down Beat, January, 1994.
Gerry Mulligan 1927-1996 – The Obituaries.
Chapter 7 -RECAPITULATION:
Gene Lees, “Gerry Mulligan: I Hear The Shadows Dancing,” Arranging the Score: Portraits of Great Arrangers. [2000]
Epilogue
Franca R. Mulligan 6.12. 2023 Phone Interview
Selected Discographies
Selected Writings