Gerry Mulligan steals thunder from other bands at SPAC

by Matthew Maguire, The Knickerbocker News, August 27, 1981

Baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan doesn’t appear routinely on “The Tonight Show,” as clarinetist Pete Fountain does. And, unlike Woody Herman, he hasn’t been leading a popular big band for four-and-a-half decades.

Nonetheless, he is a star, the thinking man’s baritone saxophonist, and possibly the best ever save Harry Carney. So it came as no surprise Wednesday night when his dynamic big band utterly upstaged the better-known, more commercially successful ensembles of Fountain and Herman before 2,600 persons at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Mulligan appeared on the SPAC stage with a prototype of this big band in 1979 at the Newport-Saratoga Jazz Festival. The kinks had not yet been worked out and his brief set at that all-day concert was memorable only in that it introduced to area jazz fans an exciting young pianist named Mitch Forman, who later that day stole the show from George Benson and all the other “all-stars” during the big-name jam session.

Now, with two more years of arranging and writing experience and a notable improvement in the quality of his personnel, Mulligan has molded this ensemble into an exhilarating showcase for his writing, arranging and playing skills.

Besides Forman, Mulligan now features such strong players as Gerry Niewood on alto, Rick Chamberlain on trombone, Frank Luther on bass, Dom Um Romao on various percussive toys, and a much improved Gary Keller, formerly of Albany, on tenor saxophone.

Mulligan’s arrangements of his own tunes deserve these strong players. On originals such as “For an Unfinished Woman,” “Another Kind of Sunday,” “Song for Strayhorn” and “Maytag,” Mulligan achieves bright, cliché-free voicings in strong section passages which alternate with generally brief solos. The rhythms alternate among straight-ahead, funk and samba, always seeming to change at the appropriate moment. And, of course, at the base of it all is the lyrical playing of Mulligan, which is as cool and clear as always.

Fine solos by Pete Fountain and his guitarist, Lloyd Ellis, highlighted the program of Dixieland standards which began the evening. But the two trombones and one trumpet were used only for big band style back-up and one-at-a-time solos in the big band tradition. The simultaneous polyphonic improvisation which makes Dixieland so interesting was completely absent, and Fountain’s set was disappointing in this one key sense.

Herman’s musicians seemed tired getting off the bus, which may explain the lack of thunder in the herd’s performance. Nonetheless, Herman always manages to sound good and, with a mixture of old standards and newer more modern pieces, Woody survived his band’s lacklustre attack.

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