Pacific Jazz Records - Gerry Mulligan

Lullaby Of The Leaves

Gerry Mulligan Quartet

Featuring Chet Baker

Gerry Mulligan, Baritone; Chet Baker, Trumpet; Larry Bunker, Drums; Carson Smith, Bass; Chico Hamilton, Drums; Bob Whitlock, Bass

A Richard Bock Production

Photographs and Cover Design: William Claxton

Pacific Jazz Enterprises, Inc. PJ-1207

1955

From the back cover: Our cover painting represents the first of a series for Pacific Jazz Records by young resident West Coast artists.

This cover was done by Colorado-born (1920) Keith Finch, who has lived in Los Angeles since early childhood. Although he has become a member of the teaching staff of the Kann Institute of Art in Los Angeles and the University of California at Los Angeles. His successful exhibits at the Landau Gallery have shown him to be one of the most important artists in American contemporary painting.

As with the music of Gerry Mulligan, Finch's work has the assurance and completeness of statement and superb combination of color, design, and idea – those things which identify the mature artist.

At the present time, Finch and artist Howard Warshaw conduct classes at their own school in West Los Angeles.

Keith Finch is represented by the Landau Gallery, Los Angeles.

Also from the back cover: Mulligan's birthplace has been given as in many places. He was, however, born in a Catholic in Queens, New York, the fourth and youngest son of an industrial engineer. Before he was a year old his family had moved to Marion, Ohio, and when his schooling was over at the age of seventeen in Philadelphia, he had lived, in  addition, to New Jersey, Chicago, Kalamazoo, Detroit and Reading. His first instrument was a ukulele. He also took piano lessons which were terminated rather suddenly after an overly hesitant recital. Following this, he learned the ocarina family, then the clarinet, although he had asked his father for a trumpet. When, in 1944, Mulligan left school, where he had led several bands, he went to work as an arranger for Tommy Tucker, turning out in the three months that he stayed a trunkful of material, some of which is still in use. He spent the next six months or so as an arranger and sometime tenor saxophonist with Elliot Lawrence, joined George Paxton, and eventually, for a year, Gene Krupa. During the next few years, he worked as a freelance writer and sideman around New York, made his first recordings, with Brew Moore and George Wallington (he had just taken up the baritone saxophone seriously), had various rehearsal bands, which occasionally practiced in Central Park because no one had money for a studio, and, shortly after the Miles Davis date, hitchhiked, over a period of months, with waystops at Reading and Albuquerque, to Lost Angeles, where he stayed more or less permanently until recent move east. On the West Coast he wrote for Kenton, and worked marathon twelve-hour gigs on Saturdays and Sundays at the Lighthouse, Hermosa Beach. In 1951 he landed a Tuesday night job at the Haig in Los Angeles, where he did some experimenting with a trio composed of guitar, his instrument and drums. Then, almost inadvertently, after he had met Chet Baker, he hit upon the instrumentation of the quartet and was recorded by Richard Bock of Pacific Jazz, the cream of which can be heard in this twelve reissues, recorded between 1952-53, that make up this record.

From Billboard - September 3, 1955: A prize collection of recordings from the Quartet's 1952-53 phase, when Chet Baker was still blowing with Mulligan. The combo made history with their fresh sound and engaging style, blazing a trail that many since have attempted to follow. The delicately balanced sonorities of baritone sax and trumpet in seemingly effortless contrapuntal play was a new aural kick for which modern jazz audiences still have sharp appetites. Mulligan's own compositions and arrangements provide the group with the most congenial framework in which to display their talents and personalities. A must for all modern collectors, unless they have previously gotten some of them released on EP.

Frenesi

Nights At The Turntable

Lullaby Of The Leaves

Jeru

Cherry

Swinghouse

I May Be Wrong

Aren't You Glad You're You

I'm Beginning To See The Light

The Nearness Of You

Makin' Whoopee

Tea For Two