Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan, Plus 'Just a Minute!'

Two contrasting sides of bandleader Elliot Lawrence today - in the main attraction, he plays the compositions and arrangements of West Coast jazz icon Gerry Mulligan. In the bonus, he shows his commercial side by presenting a bunch of minute-long instrumentals designed for easy airplay. Both are from the 1950s.

Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements

Mulligan and Lawrence had been affiliated since 1945, when the 18-year-old began writing arrangements for Lawrence's Philadelphia radio band. Lawrence himself was only 20 at the time.

The bandleader looked on admiringly as Mulligan became one of the prime movers in cool jazz. Within a few years he was composing and arranging for Miles Davis' "birth of the cool" ensemble, one of the most famous in jazz history.

The cool Gerry Mulligan

After a few more years of increasing renown, Mulligan moved to the West Coast and soon began playing with young trumpeter Chet Baker from Oklahoma. Their combo became a sensational success, only broken by Mulligan's 1953 imprisonment on drug charges.

That detour hardly interrupted Mulligan's successes - he was remarkably busy throughout the 1950s. One notable project was this 1955 Lawrence LP. It was billed as being "Gerry Mulligan arrangements," but it was mostly his compositions as well - only "Bye, Bye Blackbird," "My Silent Love," "Strike Up the Band" and "But Not for Me" are not by Mulligan.

As always, Lawrence selected the finest studio musicians for his band - Al Cohn, Hal McKusick, Nick Travis, Eddie Bert, Don Lamond and many others. Mulligan himself does not appear, although the leader was in the piano chair, as usual. It's a wonderful band, fully attuned to Mulligan's aesthetic. 

This is a highly enjoyable, beautifully played and recorded LP. You can explore Lawrence's other records via the many posts here, which cover a variety of styles.

'Just a Minute!'

This is one of the more unusual of Lawrence's many records. Dating from 1958 or 1959, it presents 16 selections of barely more than a minute's duration. It's one of a series put out by the publishing rights organization SESAC, and, I believe, sent to radio stations.

The idea may have been to provide instrumentals that programmers and disc jockeys could use to fill up those awkward bits before the station broke for news or other programming. I would guess that these were royalty-free pieces, and that would serve as an additional inducement.

It would be idle to pretend that this session is musically as interesting as the Mulligan record, but it's fun in its own right, and of course if you don't like the tune, just wait a few seconds and the "Maple Leaf Rag" turns into "The Yellow Rose of Texas."

The composers were presumably all SESAC members, and those who weren't, like Mozart and Tchaikovsky, weren't around to complain. The standout compositions include "Skullduggery" and "Skin and Bones," which I believe are by trumpeter-composer Rusty Dedrick.

The sound is OK, but has had a fair amount of reverb added, which engineers of the time found irresistible.

The LP is billed as being by "Elliot Lawrence, His Biting Brass and Hi Fi-ing Winds," with the brass and winds appearing on separate sides of the record. (A full "Hi Fi-ing Winds" LP can be found here.)

These albums are both from my collection, but let me acknowledge my friend and fellow blogger, the illustrious Ernie, who sent the SESAC LP to me as a gift. Thanks, pal!