The Gerry Mulligan 1950s Quartets
Alyn Shipton
OUP 264pp (pb) £12.99
This latest volume in OUP’s series examines barit one saxophonist Gerry Mulligan’s piano-less quartets, widely regarded as the first jazz groups to dispense with chordal instruments (although there weren’t many keyboards or strings in New Orleans marching bands) and as important contributors to the development of ‘Cool Jazz’ which, initially at least, was a mainly West-Coast-white genre. Shipton describes the roots of the quartets’ style as they were
