Gerry Mulligan Centennial: Mulligan and Me
About This Event
The centennial program Mulligan and Me at Jazz at Lincoln Center examines the music and legacy of baritone saxophonist and arranger Gerry Mulligan. It traces his role in cool jazz and his arranging work for Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis and Stan Kenton, with repertoire moving between cool jazz, bebop and hard bop and treating the baritone as a lead voice that favors clarity and architectural balance over display.
About Mulligan and Me
At Jazz at Lincoln Center, **Gerry Mulligan Centennial: Mulligan and Me** traces the music and working methods of baritone saxophonist and arranger Gerry Mulligan, a key figure in cool jazz and the postwar New York scene. The program moves between his roles as bandleader and behind-the-scenes architect, touching on his arrangements for Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis, and Stan Kenton. In a city that helped shape his sound, the set reads like a compact oral history in charts and tone. The clearest critical point is how deliberately it treats restraint as an aesthetic choice, not a limitation.
About the Artists
Gerry Mulligan Centennial: Mulligan and Me
Gerry Mulligan Centennial: *Mulligan and Me* centers on the music and legacy of baritone saxophonist and arranger Gerry Mulligan, presented at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. The program traces his cool-jazz prominence and his work shaping ensembles through writing as well as improvisation, with touchpoints that include his arranging for Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis, and Stan Kenton.
Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan was an American jazz musician best known for shaping the baritone saxophone’s role in cool jazz, while also working as a composer and arranger. He built a parallel career writing for major bandleaders and projects, and his early 1950s piano-less quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker became a reference point for small-group balance and counterpoint.