Mulligan and Crew Warm Up to ‘Cool’

When baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan steps onto the stage of the John Anson Ford Theatre on Saturday evening to play such tunes as “Move” and “Godchild” with a 11-piece band, he’ll be revisiting some old but very friendly musical territory.

Mulligan initially recorded those tunes, and several others, in 1949 and 1950 with trumpeter Miles Davis in what’s known as the “Birth of the Cool” sessions. Now he’s re-recorded those selections--which also include Davis and Bud Powell’s “Budo,” Johnny Carisi’s “Israel” and John Lewis’ “Rouge”--on “Re-Birth of the Cool,” an album that has just been released on GRP Records.

Mulligan was an integral part of those earlier recordings, which were issued on Capitol Records and are currently available as a CD reissue. He and Gil Evans, who later collaborated with Davis on such classic recordings as “Sketches of Spain,” determined the instrumentation of the then-nine-piece group--it featured alto sax, trumpet, four low brass, plus rhythm. Mulligan also wrote three originals, and arranged two other pieces.

The concept, however, was Davis’. In his autobiography, the trumpeter told his co-author, Quincy Troupe, “We wanted to sound like Claude Thornhill’s (big) band (which utilized French horns and tuba and for which both Evans and Mulligan had written), but we wanted that sound as small as possible. I wanted the instruments to sound like human voices and they did.”

Mulligan said that while he only found the space to take on the project last year, he had been wanting to re-investigate the “Birth of the Cool” material for some time. “It’s nice music. I wanted to see how those vehicles would feel being performed today since we never played together long, and didn’t get a chance to see how the group might have evolved,” said Mulligan in a phone interview from Chicago, where he was performing at the Ravinia Festival.

The first step in the “Re-Birth” process was transcribing the tunes off recordings of the 1949-50 sessions, as only two of the original arrangements could be located. “Miles said he had some, but I don’t think he did,” Mulligan said. “In any event, we had only two charts, written by Gil, which were left on the music stands after the 1950 recordings and were collected and saved by Gunther Schuller, who played French horn on one of the dates. The rest we took off the record, and that was hard because the recording was poor and sometimes you can’t really tell what horn plays what part.”

That problem has been eliminated on the new album. “I love the sound of the new record,” he said. “It has that resonance that we couldn’t get in the studio years ago. This is the sound we were striving for, and, at our best, it was the sound the band got live.”

Last summer, Mulligan told Davis of his plans to re-record this material and the trumpeter expressed interest in taking part. Sadly, he died before the recording was made. Wallace Roney, who is touring with a Miles Davis tribute quintet, was chosen to play Davis’ chair, a job he handled with aplomb, sounding like Davis at times and himself at others. Art Farmer, another longtime Mulligan associate, will perform the selections at the Ford.

Another switch from the “Re-Birth” lineup is the alto sax chair. On the recording, that slot went to Phil Woods; Lee Konitz, who performed on the original sessions, will play the live dates. Rob McConnell will also be featured on trombone.

Mulligan added that on Saturday he’ll also perform additional selections associated with his own Concert Jazz Band, including “K-4 Pacific” and “The Flying Scotsman.”

Rim Shots: The Los Angeles Jazz Society has announced its 10th annual Tribute awards. In addition to trumpeter Harry (Sweets) Edison, who was honored with the society’s top kudo, the society awarded Teddy Edwards its Lifetime Achievement Award and Gerald Wilson its Arranger/Composer Award and Bill Henderson was selected for the vocalist award. Katisse Buckingham received the society’s Shelly Manne Memorial New Talent Award.