Gerry Mulligan '63

By the '60s, big-band jazz was, economically, a difficult business to sustain, but there were still some willing to have a stab at it. Gerry Mulligan did sterling work on that front with his Concert Jazz Band, which, in its various permutations released five LPs on the Verve label between 1960 and 1963: this one, with Mulligan all clean-cut & fresh-faced on the cover, being the last of them. I found my copy in Chepstow back at the start of this year

I've had mixed success with Mulligan's records, disliking as many from his very extensive discography as I've enjoyed, but this one was an immediate hit. In this incarnation The Concert Jazz Band was seventeen strong. Most of its members' names were unfamiliar to me, aside from trombonist Bob Brookmeyer and the seemingly ubiquitous Clark Terry on trumpet & flugelhorn. And Mulligan himself, of course.

The LP includes a pair of standards, the uptempo 'Little Rock Getaway' and a well-burnished rendition of 'My Kinda Love'. Of the other numbers, one was written by Mulligan, two by Brookmeyer, and the other three by arranger Gary McFarland, whose handiwork surely helped keep proceedings up to a beguilingly high standard throughout.

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