Gerry Mulligan - Lonesome Boulevard (A&M, 1990)

This post is by Dan

Gerry Mulligan (bs); Bill Charlap (p); Dean Johnson (b); Richie De Rosa (d)

Recorded March and September, 1989

As a jazz senior statesman, Gerry Mulligan continued to perform at a high level more than 40 years after he launched a style of jazz that was, unfortunately, known by the label "cool." His arrangements on single and extended play records in the 1940s were compiled into the Birth of the Cool album that was largely credited to Miles Davis. Mulligan's piano-less quartets, frequently featuring Chet Baker and Bob Broookmeyer, became popular in the 1950s. Releases on 10" LPs in that era were quickly compiled into 12" albums on labels like Pacific Jazz. 

My first encounter with that music was through my older brother's records. Gerry Mulligan Quartet and Paris Concert stuck in my mind from an early age and remain two of my all-time favorites. The cover art alone is enough to evoke nostalgia of my first days as a jazz listener. 

Fast-forwarding a few decades found me still buying Mulligan records and enjoying every one of them. Lonesome Boulevard is my favorite of the 1980s because it's a simple quartet that swings like crazy and displays Mulligan's total mastery of the baritone sax. Plus, the entire program, except one song, was composed by Mulligan. Thus, we get to hear not only his unique style but also his compositional skill. Of course, everything he performed was "arranged" the way he wanted to hear things. I've always appreciated his arranging for small groups and his concert jazz band. They're still models for contemporary jazz arrangements.  

Lonesome Boulevard includes pianist Bill Charlap in what must have been one of his first recordings at age 21. It's hard to find mention of this date in Charlap's discographic or biographic information online. He performs exceptionally well for a youngster. Too bad he didn't amount to very much professionally <wink>.

Lonesome Boulevard was released on A&M's Modern Masters Series, which also released Don Cherry's Art Deco. Lonesome Boulevard was reissued in 2009 as a "Verve Original," which seems odd since it wasn't originally a Verve recording.