September 17, 2021
The great American novelist William Faulkner once wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Yet January 25, 1953 feels like ancient history. It was the dawn of the Eisenhower Era. Dwight Eisenhower had been sworn in as President five days before. January 25 was also the date when half the tracks on Lee Konitz Plays with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet were recorded.
The location was an odd little club in Hollywood called The Haig. From the outside it looked like a house. It was a converted bungalow, just off Wilshire Boulevard on Kenmore. It could hold about 100 people. There were some famous establishments in the neighborhood, like the Brown Derby restaurant. The Ambassador Hotel, home of the Coconut Grove nightclub, was across the street. (Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in the hotel’s kitchen in 1968.) All of them are gone. The Haig closed on April 4, 1956. The Brown Derby and the Ambassador have been demolished. No sign of them remains. Very few people who ever heard jazz at the Haig are still alive.
Lee Konitz Plays with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, emerging from the shadows of history, arrives with questions. For starters, how did Konitz get the gig? On January 25, 1953, Gerry Mulligan’s quartet with Chet Baker (invariably called “the pianoless quartet” by jazz historians) was the hottest jazz act in Los Angeles. They had a new sound. People lined up around the block to get into The Haig to hear them. They had been together only a few months but had been recording regularly for Richard Bock’s new Pacific Jazz label. (They would continue working with Bock until May 1953, eventually recording 42 tracks.) An article was about to appear in Time magazine (on February 2) that would spread the group’s fame nationwide.
So why did Mulligan, whose quartet was packing them into The Haig on its own, decide to bring in a guest who was currently working in Stan Kenton’s orchestra? Konitz was 25 at the time and not a big name. (Mulligan was also 25. Baker was 23.)
Here’s what we do know: In addition to the five tracks recorded live at The Haig, the same band taped three tracks five days later, on January 30, at an unknown studio in L.A. They were Konitz (alto saxophone); Mulligan (baritone saxophone); Baker (trumpet); Carson Smith (bass); Larry Bunker (drums). Two days later, on February 1, with Joe Mondragon replacing Smith on bass, they recorded two more tracks. The location was the home studio of engineer Phil Turetsky. (Nowadays people think of the home studio as a recent trend, but Turetsky had one at his home in Laurel Canyon in 1953. Ted Gioia, in his great book West Coast Jazz, calls it “primitive” and says it had “an Ampex tape recorder [running] off a single RCA 44-B microphone.”) The ten tracks were originally released on two 10” LP’s on the Pacific Jazz label, and later appeared on 12” LP and CD reissues.
To talk about the music on Lee Konitz Plays with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, it is necessary to back up and discuss the working band that Konitz briefly joined. An enormous amount has been written about Mulligan’s short-lived seminal ensemble. It is often described as a group that defined the West Coast jazz sound, but in fact this quartet was unique unto itself. While it had the airy melodicism and the light-stepping agility associated with the West Coast “cool school,” it was much more about intricate group interplay and less about extended solos. Mulligan and Baker were an odd couple. Mulligan was a complete musician, an original baritone saxophone stylist and a skilled composer/arranger. Baker was a natural who could not read music but who had an extraordinary ear and a gift for continuous spontaneous melodic invention. By organizing a band without a chordal instrument, Mulligan created an open harmonic environment in which he and Baker could work their magic in counterpoint and display their lightning reflexes in rarefied calls and responses.
Take, for example, “Bernie’s Tune,” recorded by the quartet (with Bob Whitlock on bass and Chico Hamilton on drums) on August 16, 1952, five and a half months before the collaborations with Konitz. (It is available on the Pacific Jazz double CD set, Gerry Mulligan: The Original Quartet with Chet Baker.) The head is divided into its constituent parts among saxophone, trumpet and bass, as if they were sections of a big band. Even Hamilton’s drum part is arranged. The tight theme statement spins off quick, graceful, dancing solos by Mulligan and Baker. The trumpet solo is an exquisite melodic crystallization. Then Mulligan and Baker jump into a headlong chorus of serpentine collective improvisation. Hamilton is given eight bars to craft a summary. Then they all flow seamlessly into the theme again. The whole occupies less than three minutes. It was strikingly modern music in 1952, yet its emphasis on ensemble form was reminiscent of Dixieland jazz.
So what happened when, early in 1953, Lee Konitz was introduced into this well oiled quartet machine? Amazing stuff happened. On the five studio tracks, Mulligan the arranger now has three horn voices to manipulate. The theme statements take on new layers and colors. On “Almost Like Being in Love,” the exchanges among the horns on the head are exhilarating and complex but feel loose, as three players shift within foreground and background. Konitz is a full participant in the ensemble activities, but, with a new member in the band, there is less time allotted to improvised group polyphony and more time to solos. Still, in these three-minute tracks, solos are necessarily concise. Whereas Mulligan and Baker offer small gems of theme-and-variation, Konitz’s solos are all variation, liberated and sublime. On “Broadway” (one of two studio tracks in which he solos first), he spills out of the song in runs that tumble over one another and eventually connect. The number of intriguing ideas that Konitz, at 25, could insert into a brief solo is startling. But even before you perceive the ideas you are captivated by that seductive alto saxophone sound. It was quintessentially cool, without obvious rhythmic accents. But the ideas weren’t cool. They were hot enough to burn you. (Ted Gioia described Konitz’s sound as “fire and ice.”) On “I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love with Me,” Konitz follows Baker but instead of responding to Baker he invents a new song.
Perhaps there are simple reasons why Mulligan invited Konitz to sit in with his already successful band. Both Konitz and Mulligan had been in the nonets that made the (now legendary) Birth of the Cool recordings for Capitol in 1949 and 1950. No doubt Mulligan knew that Konitz was a badass.
The greatest moments on Lee Konitz Plays with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet come at The Haig. On these five live tracks, Konitz is essentially the only soloist, although Mulligan and Baker often whisper horn backgrounds and counterlines behind him. The tunes are only about a minute longer than the studio tracks, but the difference is crucial. Konitz gets the space to develop detailed interpretive concepts. On “I’ll Remember April,” the jaunty ensemble intro launches an inspired Konitz outpouring. On “These Foolish Things” Konitz’s languor is deliciously decadent. “All the Things You Are,” with its series of passionate alto saxophone ascents, sounds like ecstasy.
The closest thing to a ballad is “Lover Man.” When that timeless melody floats up out of Konitz, everything stops. You suddenly realize that William Faulkner was right. The past is not past. “Lover Man” is alive in the moment, inhabiting its own present tense. The crowd claps and calls out when it is over. Surely they understood their good fortune to be there.
Gerry Mulligan went on to a distinguished career and died at 69 in 1996. Chet Baker became equally famous for his unique artistry and his dissipation. On May 13, 1988, at 58, with heroin and cocaine in his system, he was found dead on the street below his hotel room in Amsterdam. It was never discovered whether he jumped or was pushed or accidentally fell. There is a plaque in his memory outside the Hotel Prins Hendrik. Lee Konitz fulfilled a life of exceptional longevity and creativity and died at 92 of COVID-19 on April 15, 2020.
But just listen to Konitz play “Lover Man.” The past is never dead. Those 100 people in the Haig will be there forever.
—THOMAS CONRAD
For over 30 years Thomas Conrad has been a prolific journalist, focusing primarily on the subject of jazz. He has been a contributing editor at Stereophile since 1995. His work has appeared in many publications in the United States and Europe, including JazzTimes, The New York City Jazz Record, and Downbeat.
Lee Konitz Plays with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet is available now in an all-analog 180g Tone Poet Vinyl Edition.
