Godchild – 1992
Gerry Mulligan
A famous Mulligan arrangement is brought back to life
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Gerry Mulligan (1927-96) was one of the greatest baritone-saxophonists of all time and was certainly the best known.
He was quite skilled not only as a soloist but as an arranger and composer.
In 1992, Mulligan led a group that paid tribute to Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool Nonet which he had been a member of 44 years earlier.
The ensemble that he heads on this concert performance is actually listed as the Gerry Mulligan Tentet despite having 11 pieces.
It consists of Mulligan, trumpeters Art Farmer and Mike Mossman, valve trombonist Rob McConnell, Bob Routch on French horn, altoist Lee Konitz, Ken Peplowski on tenor and clarinet, pianist Ted Rosenthal, Bill Barber on tuba, bassist Dean Johnson, and drummer Ron Vincent.
The group revisits Mulligan’s arrangement of George Wallington’s “Godchild” which he had written in the late 1940s for the Miles Davis Nonet; this version features Konitz, Farmer and Mulligan.
-Scott Yanow
