Mulligan, Patton, Chambers

[John Tapscott]

I got the Mulligan today (#119) and I've listened to half of CD #1 and so far I think the sound is fabulous. (I haven't hard the Verve mini LP). And it came through with no taxes or package fee added by the Canadian Post office. Thank you, Mosaic!

[David Ayers]

Why wasn't it programmed chronologically

Can anybody clarify this issue of the running order? I haven't got my set yet, and I can't work out why they selected this order from looking at the discography posted on the Mosaic site.

[Free For All]

I really enjoy this band. The "little big band" instrumentation makes it light on its feet, and I find little to fault with soloists like Clark Terry, Bob Brookmeyer, Gene Quill, Willie Dennis and Mulligan. Shrdlu, much as I share your love of Freddie, Wayne and Lee, I'm not sure they would have been a good fit for this band, which seems to have a more understated vibe to the solos in general. Some of the lesser-known players are not as refined, I'll agree to that, but to me the star of these recordings is the arranging/composing. I think there are some really forward-looking charts, and if you get the Mosaic, Shrdlu, you'll get to hear (among others)All About Rosie, a very interesting George Russell chart.

Regarding Bill Crow, he's an example of someone who was at the right place at the right time. He was in New York at a great time- among his gigs he did a lot of playing with Marion McPartland's trio, most famously her Hickory House trio. He wasn't known as a soloist, but he just laid down a good time feel. He is well known for having written a book worth checking out called "Jazz Anecdotes". A quick but entertaining read.

[pryan]

I got the Mulligan today (#119) and I've listened to half of CD #1 and so far I think the sound is fabulous. (I haven't hard the Verve mini LP). And it came through with no taxes or package fee added by the Canadian Post office. Thank you, Mosaic!

Wow, that's a stroke of luck if I've ever seen one. That damn "handling fee" that Canada Post charges on Mosaic orders (and others) really pisses me off; the shipping charge should deliver the package straight to your door, but no, let's tack on another five bucks just for kicks. Free trade, my ass!

[Clunky]

Just received the Mulligan set, selling pretty well , my copy is number 810 !!! in just a few short days. Sounds wonderful, plenty of energy on what I've played so far.

[David Ayers]

I got the Mulligan today (#119) and I've listened to half of CD #1 and so far I think the sound is fabulous.  (I haven't hard the Verve mini LP). And it came through with no taxes or package fee added by the Canadian Post office. Thank you, Mosaic!

Wow, that's a stroke of luck if I've ever seen one. That damn "handling fee" that Canada Post charges on Mosaic orders (and others) really pisses me off; the shipping charge should deliver the package straight to your door, but no, let's tack on another five bucks just for kicks. Free trade, my ass!

What about the Mosaic 'handling fee'? I don't know how it affects you guys, but my last shipment from Mosaic cost me $12 S&H surface - actual cost of postage, $4.50. Sometimes when I check surface they ship by air (about $9 on a small package, still less than they charge me). Actually, I think its a pretty big mark up, and really goes back to the days when they sold mainly LPs. A $7.50 mark up on a $50 order - that's 15%. Nice work if you can get it. No wonder the Canadian Post want to get a pice of that action.

[Jazzmoose]

All this talk of numbers made me check; I got #111. Pretty strange looking to me, considering the lowest numbered set I've received prior to this has been the Anita O'Day at #1627...

But the music! Maybe it's just the fact that it's the newest one, but this is definitely my favorite Mosaic so far, at least of the single artist packages. (I have a hard time comparing the Capitol Jazz box with all the variety.) Then again, with one exception, I've felt that way each time a Mosaic has shown up on my porch...

[Out2Lunch]

I've had a chance to listen to it twice and agree that it is one of the finest Mosaics yet. I also agree with your statement about the latest Mosaics showing up on the porch!!

[clandy44]

I'll add a me-too. The Mulligan is really unbelievable for its sound, considering it's 40+ years old. I've only heard disc 1 so far, but it blows away most if not all of the other Mulligan lps and cds I have in terms of its sound, and is a challenger for a top performance in my view. I also have listened to only one of the Patton discs, but glad I picked up the set.

Mosaic just seems to be getting better and better-don't have the Johnny Smith yet, but I'm sure it is top notch in all ways. Buying direct from Mosaic is an antidote to buying on ebay where the prices and the seller representations are grossly inflated, and where identity theft is just a key stroke away.

[clandy44]

Looks like Giddins agrees with us:

Weatherbird

by Gary Giddins

All Duke's Chillun Got Melody

Gerry Mulligan's concert jazz band was short-lived and indelible and not for dancers

October 15 - 21, 2003

At long last, Gerry Mulligan's five Concert Jazz Band albums, recorded for Verve between 1960 and 1962, have been collected, though not by Verve. Mosaic (35 Melrose Place, Stamford, CT 06902, 203-327-7111, info@mosaicrecords.com) has done a consummate job with The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band Sessions. These much loved but long-unavailable records have never sounded better—even the muzzy Milan sides gleam. The integrity of the original LPs is preserved, with unreleased takes placed at the end of appropriate discs. From the first measures of Al Cohn's arrangement of "Sweet and Low," you know you are on enchanted ground, and the sense of discovery and triumph never subsides for long, partly because each album's personality is distinct from the others'.

Mulligan became an overnight sensation with his piano-less quartet in the early 1950s, but big bands remained his first love and the CJB was his boldest attempt to initiate a venturesome orchestra—its very name warned dancers to go elsewhere. It was to be a workshop ensemble, an expanded version of the Miles Davis nonets (for which Mulligan had scored most of the music), allowing him and other writers to show what a full complement could do. His celebrity, plus the willingness of members to work cheap and Norman Granz's deep pockets, made the undertaking possible. Another crucial component, as Bill Kirchner demonstrates in his illuminating notes, was the steady instigation of Bob Brookmeyer, the Mulligan quartet's valve trombonist and ultimately the CJB's most prolific arranger.

Eighteen months after the start-up, Granz sold Verve, dooming the project but for one last hurrah in late 1962, but the CJB's influence was immediate and lasting. The first big band to play the Village Vanguard, it engendered what is now known as the Vanguard Orchestra, unleashing a tide of rehearsal or Monday-night bands. Its method of building orchestral constructs from combo outlines helped Mulligan retain a limber spontaneity; among the many bandleaders who elaborated on the idea were Charles Tolliver (see below), David Murray, and most recently Dave Holland. But Mulligan's band had something no other band could rival—his stubborn, nostalgic, frequently inspired, occasionally cloying passion for melody.

Ironically, Mulligan was so preoccupied with the mechanics of bandleading that he wrote nothing for the project beyond an unreleased update of his Kenton classic "Young Blood" and a majestic "Come Rain or Come Shine," recorded twice to feature Zoot Sims and, more successfully, himself. So in addition to Brookmeyer and Cohn, he enlisted Bill Holman, George Russell, Johnny Mandel, and a then unknown Gary McFarland. Mulligan and Brookmeyer were the primary soloists, spelled by Sims, Clark Terry, Gene Quill, Jim Hall, Willie Dennis, the forgotten tenor Jim Rieder, and the group's unsung hero, trumpeter Don Ferrara, whose bursts of invention on "Out of This World," "I'm Gonna Go Fishin'," "Barbara's Theme," and "All About Rosie" place him in the Hasaan category of lost jazz noblemen.

A benign Olympian hovers over this material, and it isn't Apollo. The blessings of Duke Ellington are everywhere; no other group of writers paid homage with more candor and creativity. The original notes to the CJB's last LP specified Ellington's impact on those pieces, but it was apparent from the first: symbolically in the first recorded number, "I'm Gonna Go Fishin' " (from Anatomy of a Murder), and wittily in the Ellington-meets-Clyde McCoy passages of "Sweet and Low." Hats are tipped to Evans-Thornhill, Basie, Goodman, and Herman, while Russell's "All About Rosie"—a superior update of the 1957 version—flies in its own orbit. Yet Ellington is invoked constantly, in voicings that include clarinet and in the interplay between soloists and ensemble.

There is so much to admire, not least the rhythm sections, especially the team of Mel Lewis and Bill Crow, which emphasize a relaxed capering that reflects Mulligan's easeful swing. The contrast between Mulligan's smoothly gruff lyricism and Brookmeyer's gruffly smooth barking, hissing, chomping solos typifies the good humor that often rises to the top—as in anything by Cohn, notably the matchless double windup of "Lady Chatterley's Mother," or the last bar of Brookmeyer's "You Took Advantage of Me" (a solo sigh that was played by the ensemble at a European concert released on European labels), or Mulligan's whimsical "Emaline" intro to "Come Rain or Come Shine," or his breakaway interpolation of "Blues in the Night" and Brookmeyer's asthmatic entrance on "Sweet and Low," or John Carisi's orchestration of Miles Davis's two choruses on "Israel," to say nothing of Holman's 6/8 arrangement of "I'm Gonna Go Fishin'," which turns it into a rocking counterpart of "All Blues." The On Tour album qualifies as a de facto Zoot Sims concerto and a definition of mercurial wit.

Rumors of hours of unreleased material have proved untrue; the Vanguard tapes are apparently lost, and the 11 new alternates and otherwise unreleased items don't add much, except for "Young Blood." Mulligan would undoubtedly be relieved. This is desert island material, returned to life after more than two decades, in a limited pressing of 7,500 copies. Those should sell quickly enough; maybe then Verve (which now offers only the Vanguard set) will return this music to stores. Don't wait.

[Shrdlu]

Why wasn't it programmed chronologically

Can anybody clarify this issue of the running order? I haven't got my set yet, and I can't work out why they selected this order from looking at the discography posted on the Mosaic site.

David, they used the order on the original LPs, following that with the unissued related tracks. Thus, CD 1 is the first LP, with the 4 or 5 unissued items at the end. I am not annoyed about this, but in these circumstances, I would prefer chronological order.

[Chuck Nessa]

All this talk of numbers made me check; I got #111. Pretty strange looking to me, considering the lowest numbered set I've received prior to this has been the Anita O'Day at #1627...

My Patton Select is number 0006, same at the catalog number.

Concerning the sequence of the Mulligan set, Cuscuna took so much crap about mixing alternates with "album sequences" he stopped doing it.

[Shrdlu]

My copy of the new Mulligan 4 CD set arrived safely a day or two ago. No thefts in the mail, no Bat Guano, no white chocolate, just a nice cardboard box of goodies.

#1142 already! These sure are going fast. I guess we should expect a rapid start for a set like this, though. The sales may slow down after an initial burst.

The sound is, as expected, superbly clear - you could say, an honorary Japanese set. Malcolm scores again. They've GOT to get him onto the Blue Note and other Capitol-owned stuff from now on.

The contents of discs 3 and 4 are entirely new to me, and are wonderful. They make a welcome addition to the early material, which I've known for so long. I'm sure that these will give many hours of enjoyment.

I mentioned before that I had bought the mini LP CD of the Vanguard session. That sounds really good, and would be fine if there were no other version, but the Mosaic Addey remastering is even better to my ears, and has more presence. It will be the one that I listen to from now on. But I'm still glad to have the artwork and notes of the separate version. It would be nice if Mosaic copied Fantasy and included a page with the old LP covers, and even the original notes. I know that opinions differ about this, but that's what I'd like.

After also hearing the Paris concert, I think I prefer the versions from that to the corresponding studio versions on the Mosaic CD 1. The group was more experienced by then, and there's nothing like a live perforamance. Gerry said that some of the audience was a pain that night, but you can't hear that on the record.

[wesbed]

I recently received the Paul Chambers Select. It's a very classy & sublime set of music.

Chambers has played on so many jazz sessions. It seems that nearly every jazz CD I pick up, there is Paul Chambers playing the bass.

Besides the excellent music, the thing about the Chambers Select that astounded me the most was learning/realizing, via the liner notes, that Chambers died at only 34 years of age. Thirty-four years?

I am 37 years old. I compare the length of Chambers' life to my own and it seems like he was with us so much longer.

[BFrank]

From today's NY Times:

'MOSAIC SELECT: PAUL CHAMBERS' (Mosaic, three CD's, $39)

John Coltrane presented some early examples of his composing on a Paul Chambers album from 1956 called "Whims of Chambers," made when they were bandmates in Miles Davis's quintet and preserved here. There's promise in the writing, but even better is the sense of familiarity, since the drummer Philly Joe Jones, another member of the Davis quintet, was on the session, too. Chambers was a remarkable bassist; his strong pizzicato functioned both within a groove and as a surface detail. So it made sense for him to make music with the bass as a frontline instrument, as he did with "Bass on Top," another of the five albums included here, on which he also used the guitarist Kenny Burrell and the pianist Hank Jones.

BEN RATLIFF

'MOSAIC SELECT: BENNIE GREEN' (Mosaic, three CD's, $39)

A trombonist from Chicago, Green came up through the famous early-40's edition of the Earl Hines band, which included the primary architects of bebop, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He went on to play with Charlie Ventura and Duke Ellington, but always as a trombonist in a big band, until he began making these charming records under his own name in the late 50's and early 60's. Green's style wasn't bebop, though: it suggested a throwback to the swing trombonists Trummy Young and J. C. Higginbotham — rhythmically clear and unhurried, with a slight New Orleans shout around the edges. Surrounding him were some of the great hard-bop players of the day (including Sonny Clark, Elvin Jones and Charlie Rouse), and the intersection of cool and hot styles makes these five records, little heard and long out of print, priceless.

BEN RATLIFF

'THE COMPLETE VERVE GERRY MULLIGAN CONCERT BAND SESSIONS' (Mosaic, four CDs, $68)

Here are all five albums by Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band, each a major accomplishment. This music — both studio and live (including the exciting "At the Village Vanguard") comes from the early 60's, when Mulligan decided he wanted a large ensemble for art's sake, not for dancing. What resulted had plenty of brains and subtlety. It's smart, intense music, and Mulligan was breathtaking back then. But this set should also strengthen the reputation of the trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, the band's principal arranger and practical boss, whose grainy solos, full of bright, slangy ideas and harmonic acuity, have stayed potent.

BEN RATLIFF

'MOSAIC SELECT: JOHN PATTON' (Mosaic, three CD's, $39)

The organist (Big) John Patton, who died last year, made a number of deep-soul, organ-and-tenor albums for Blue Note through the 1960's and resurfaced in the 80's through John Zorn's advocacy. Those five albums — excluding "Let 'Em Roll" and "Got a Good Thing Goin,' " both available as single CD's — hadlong been out of print, until now. Saxophonists (Harold Vick, Fred Jackson, Junior Cook, Harold Alexander) come and go through the records, and the guitarist Grant Green plays his signature licks on cue, but it's the connection between Patton and his drummer, Ben Dixon, that counts. Dixon plays light, dancing rhythms, as if his drum set were a giant tambourine; they complement Patton's bouncing figures perfectly.

BEN RATLIFF

[Soul Stream]

What about the interplay of Jarvis/Patton or Walker/Patton! , Dixon doesn't play on but half of the material . Glad for the nice review for the Patton set, but pretty superficial and short. I guess that was the space alloted. Too bad.

[BFrank]

SS - It was a long piece about this year's box sets - all types of music, so I was pretty impressed that they got 4 Mosaics in there at all.

Here's the link to the entire piece. Some other interesting reviews, actually.

NY Times box set reviews

Edited December 1, 2003 by BFrank

[Adam]

Or maybe this is the better one to bring up for comments on the Mulligan. Is it wearing well? Should I get this and another Select before the Basie?