Featured Album | Alternative Liner Notes

056 | The Gerry Mulligan Quartet | What is There to Say? | Philips BBL 7320 | 1959

For ‘What is There to Say?’, Gerry Mulligan is joined by Art Farmer on trumpet, Bill Crow on bass and Dave Bailey on drums, an album recorded in late 1958, early 1959, and released later in the year.  The four selections, a mixture of original Mulligan pieces with one or two standards, notably the Rogers and Hart chestnut “My Funny Valentine”, which here, loses none of its melancholy.  The bassist Bill Crow even offers up his own “News from Blueport” to good effect.  As the cover shot of Mulligan suggests, ‘What is There to Say?’ is as relaxed as his pose, contemplative, thoughtful and cool throughout, after all Mulligan was there at the birth of the cool, though the album closer “Utter Chaos” would suggest otherwise.  Each time I take this down from the shelf, my aim is to listen all the way through, though I occasionally have to play “Festive Minor”, “What is There to Say” and “Just in Time”, at least a couple of times.               

Playlist:

Impromptu – Stan Getz & Dizzy Gillespie (Diz and Getz)

Festive Minor – Gerry Mulligan Quartet (What is There to Say?)

Wavy Gravy – Kenny Burrell (Midnight Blue)

Groovin’ High – Milt Jackson (BeBop)

Night Flyte – Roy Ayers (You Might Be Surprised)

Concierto De Aranjuez – Miles Davis (Sketches of Spain)

Bluesette – Jimmy Smith (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

Utter Chaos – Gerry Mulligan Quartet (What is There to Say?)