Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 3, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press wednesday june Mulligan has paid his dues sax Man ranks High on the scale in artistry and business by Ted Allan jazz after All is business be says briskly this Grey bearded Squire of Darien conn., pacing his fifth floor front at the Winnipeg inn and it be plainly helps to keep that in mind because a performer is dependent on celebrity for dressed in Westchester Mufti of Slacks loafers and open dress shirt his attache Case at bedside papers scattered about the desk Gerry Mulligan could Well be an officer in the Treadmill troops of Commerce that March rest Lessly through the Midtown Monu ment. Complicated but the esteemed jazz meet. Like Julius la Rosa or Eddie Arranger Multi Reed player Fisher. Handful of chaotic one room office rec Ord companies emerging from the Orange Groves a gaunt feisty Young new York loft Bohemian named Gerry Mulligan did something unimaginable. He transformed jazz from an exclusive Art form into a momentarily popular music. Mulligan formed a piano less quartet that made his trumpeter Chet Baker a pin up the Gerry Mulligan hairstyle a fashion and Cool jazz a socially necessary Pursuit. I heard a track of chefs on the radio the other Mulligan retails diff Dently. He sounded pretty that was the beginning of Mulligan s moment of Broad Public celebrity. And he became a name of the to pious baritone saxophonist considers business a vital if mildly unpleasant element of jazz. Running a band is like running a Small he adds. It s very complicated. But if you like the music you pay the dues. I like the in the Mullig Tawny of american culture such diverse ingredients As pop celebrity innovative artistry and business acumen Are Seldom compatibly combined in the same source. There is however a Short honors list and Gerry Mulligan is on it. He made it in fact in 1953 when he was 25 years old. That year the barometer of mainstream american musical preferences the pop music charts indicated that both Rex Allen and the orioles were crying in the Chapel parsimonious Patti Page was inquiring after the Cost of that Doggie in the window a mellowing Frank Sinatra was still Young at heart and ingenuous Tony Bennett was a stranger in Paradise. It was the blink of an Eye before the epoch of White Rock n Roll. In 1954, acres Bill Haley be deluge. Haley bleached and reprised Joe Turner s version of shake rattle and Roll and forever altered the course of popular music. Course set the unexpected evolutionary tack was t accidental. In 1953, the course was set when rhythm and blues per formers Turner fats Domino Ruth Brown and the drifters All had Mil lion Selling hits that infiltrated the pop charts. Domino alone had four million Sellers that year. But also in 1953, out in California where the music business was still a he even appeared briefly in three films i want to live the unforgivable Hollywood debasement Kerouac s the subterranean and the Cinema verite classic jazz on a summer s Day. But four years earlier when Mulli Gan played composed and arranged for the Miles Davis nonet a ground breaking Post Bop band he established the serious credentials of his Art the iconoclastic writing Loose polyphonic contrapuntal and deceptively Busy added a new Chap Ter to the body of jazz composition. Of course none of this was known when Cool was elevated to a mass cultural condition by Mulligan s West coast quartet. It did t result in record sales in the millions either. But it resounded in the Public consciousness and established Mulligan As at least a footnote in the cultural landscape of America. In the flesh he s much More sub Stantial than a footnote though it has More to do with intellect than flesh he s at least As gaunt and feisty As he was when he contributed substantially along with Gil Evans and John Lewis to birth of the Cool band 32 years ago. As thin As a no. 2 Reed slightly hunched he looks like a fasting Viking elder. One wonders How he at 54, avoids double hernia blowing his big bad Bari. He s in town for a gig tonight in the Centennial concert Hall performing with his current quartet and the Csc Winnipeg orchestra a concerto like work written for him by his Friend Toronto composer Harry Freedman. It s a Lovely piece using jazz techniques and figures i arranged Pas sages for the orchestra As Well As Solo improvisation. In fact i even play Soprano sax i a slow blues like move ment which is Nice. It s easier to come Down from a baritone to a Soprano than it is to Tenor or Alto. The mouthpiece is so much smaller you use an entirely different set of Gerald Joseph Mulligan was born in Philadelphia raised in new York and was a thoroughly professional com Poser and player by his teens. He has been instrumental As it were in at least three developmental phases of jazz in his 35-year career. After the Miles Davis association and the extraordinary popularity of his quartets he formed his concert jazz band in 1960, a 13-piece repertory or Chestra dedicated to broadening the language of jazz. Author Whitney Balliet described Mulligan s work with the band Asun flagging by Rich in Subtle dynamics and sensitive exploration of instrumental in 1966, when the concert band went Down in debt Mulligan was understandably dyspeptic about the Condi Tion of jazz a state of mind he won t confirm now. There Are sufficient opportunities for me and there s a lot of music around that i like. I can t complain about not being but he did refrain from fronting any Perma Anent aggregation of his own. Which is not to say he was t Active. One of a handful of baritone virtuoso Mulligan concentrated on playing and recording covering an astonishing Gamut of styles. I m composing More now than i Ever Mulligan says. In fact i think i could be reasonably satisfied just composing. Of course i say that from the Vantage Point of playing All the he s also edging Back into recording his own groups again. I perform and tour with my 15-piece. Big band and the quartet. I m jumping from one to the other. John Hammond has started a new recording company. It s entirely Independent but will be distributed by lbs which is a helluva advantage and an album of mine will be first this time around Mulligan s labors won t be lost on accountants Market ing men and image brokers. Hammond s new recording company Mulligan the businessman is a member of the Board. I can t complain about not being say jazz great Gerry Mulligan. Plummer and symphony Combine to put Canada s history to music Ottawa up the dawning of Man s history in Canada occurred on the frosty fog shrouded land Bridge that connected Alaska to Asia sons ago. Most historians agree with that Al though the event is unlikely to have been accompanied by the full forces of the London symphony orchestra with actor Christopher Plummer doing the narration. However in this age of imaginative Home entertainment the orchestra Plummer and a stable of Talent including the Mcgarrigle Sisters the Laurie Bower singers and the Canadian Chil Dren s choir Combine forces for a two record history of Canada set to music. In the dawning a Story of Canada is an hour and 17 minutes creation of Doug Button of Edmonton the entrepreneur behind Denali music Ltd. The set with the Complete text of narration and songs i the jacket notes goes on Sale this week in major Chain department stores and record shops priced at a deluxe version with leather bound covers is to be sold through direct mail advertising. The opening word when the Earth was ice Are set against music by Eric Robertson played by the Lon Don symphony conducted by Harry Rabinowitz. This fades into the eerie Throat chants of two inuit women Shaunak Mikki Gak and Timan Giak be Taulessie and the dawning of Canada is set. I Kate and Anna Mcgarrigle Stag in. French of the arrival of Les Filles do Roi the daughters of the King in the Early settlements of new France and the set takes a sweeping look at Ca Nadian history from the fur trading companies the Battle of the Plains of Abraham the explorers and the War of 1812 to Klondike Gold fever the first use of the Telephone and the first and second world wars. Bingo Ivy i Hight want at pm . 239 Selkirk ave. And 469 Magnus ave. 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