Billboard : 02/25/1956
Spotlight on… selection

This is the first new Mulligan in a long time, and his big debut disk for EmArcy. It should be a big one. The style, of course is modern, but sometimes with as much ensemble interplay and classic conception as any traditional New Orleans unit. Relaxed and swinging melodic jazz thruout, with an unusually high level of solo art and pervasive good taste. Bernie’s Tune makes a good demo track. Will pull plenty of loot.

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Cashbox : 03/10/1956

With the Gerry Mulligan Quartet a segment of past jazz history, the Gerry Mulligan Sextet seems set to capably carry the ball from now on. EmArcy has waxed the Sextet in eight stimulating and resourceful sessions. The boys are effectively cool with Everything Happens To Me and deliciously go all-out on The Lady Is A Tramp. Gerry’s new combo should give jazz adherents a good conversation piece, and dealers a strong sales disk. Mulligan in recent years has been one of top jazz LP sellers. This disk should follow suit.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 04/01/1956

Mulligan has gone on to bigger sounds with his new contract with EmArcy, the Mercury wing. The first released under that label is Presenting Gerry Mulligan Sextet. Brookmeyer is with him again. Eardley‘s clean trumpet is a familiar companion to Mulligan’s music. The other half of the sextet are Peck Morrison‘s bass, Dave Bailey drums, and the tenor sax of Zoot Sims.

I enjoy Mulligan’s music because he writes always to complement full rhythm. There is never even a hint of noodling. His arrangements at the same time spotlight the solo talent of the men he plays with. And the coming together is always a warm embrace.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 02/23/1956

Gerry Mulligan, baritone saxophone player, arranger and leader of various small groups, has been one of the few really important influences in modern jazz in recent years.

Mulligan had a hand in those remarkable records which Miles Davis made for Capitol in the late ’40s – one of them called by Mulligan’s nickname, Jeru. He also made numerous arrangements for Gene Krupa and Elliot Lawrence in the late ’40s and then, with the advent of his own quartet in the early ’50s, he began to exercise a direct influence on modern jazz. You hear Mulligan today all over the place.

With the exception of Brubeck‘s records, no modern jazz LPs have sold better than Mulligan’s first efforts for Fantasy and Pacific Jazz. They remain among the most important jazz records of the decade. In recent weeks, there have been two new Mulligan LPs issued: one, a Pacific Jazz LP, Gerry Mulligan Quartet – Paris Concert the other, an EmArcy LP, Presenting the Gerry Mulligan Sextet.

The Paris LP was made in 1954 and the EmArcy last year. In addition, Capitol has just re-released Gerry Mulligan and his Tentette on a 12-inch LP with Shorty Rogers‘s Capitol sides on the reverse – a bargain package.

The first thing that struck me listening to these was that there is a similarity in approach no matter what Mulligan is writing – ballads or originals, or for what size group. This pattern emphasizes several good points. For instance, Mulligan implements his own statement that jazz must swing. Some musicians can write arrangements that almost swing themselves; Mulligan is one of these. No matter what he is writing, the trademark is swing and it is a good, old-fashioned Kansas City style swing, at that.

Another strong point is the delightful, happy-sounding, puckish counterpoint that Mulligan writes for two horns. There are plenty of surprises and not a little humor in almost everything he writes.

The Paris Concert by the quartet is one of the best Mulligan LPs available. Bob Brookmeyer fits so well with the quartet that you forget what a force he is on his own; and it is a supreme compliment to Mulligan that he could absorb Brookmeyer to this extent.

The EmArcy Sextet LP has Zoot Sims and Jon Eardley on it and contains many fine solos by Mulligan himself, even though it is not so strong and example as the quartet of a Mulligan group. Mulligan’s own work on this one is the LPs best asset. His solos are fresh and moving. The Capitol Tentette remains middle-of-the-road Mulligan (despite the gushing liner notes) but still good examples of his development. Now I want to hear Gerry’s writing for his own big band. That should be quite interesting.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 04/14/1956

The first recording that Mulligan‘s present group (Z. Sims, B. Brookmeyer, J. Eardley, P. Morrison, D. Bailey) has made since its inception last summer. This is a genuinely organic jazz unit, built on collective interplay, and is, as such, probably the best modern small band around today. The soloists are excellent, especially Sims. The materials are ingeniously arranged around the solos as well as in long and highly original contrapuntal sections that are unique in their written-improvised way. There is, too, that tough lyricism which Mulligan brings to all his work. First-rate.

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Windsor Star
Matt Denis : 02/18/1956

In jazz circles the name of Gerry Mulligan demands respect and the young baritone saxophonist has few peers in the arranging field. Mercury Records on their EmArcy label offer a generous sample of the Mulligan style on a new 12-inch long-play Presenting the Gerry Mulligan Sextet. With Zoot Sims on tenor sax, Dave Bailey on drums, Jon Eardley on trumpet, Bob Brookmeyer on trombone and Peck Morrison on bass, the group offers eight numbers in clear-cut jazz fashion. Eardley and Sims regularly record for the Prestige label and their work is outstanding on The Lady Is a Tramp, Broadway, Bernie’s Tune and Sweet and Lovely. The deft musicianship hand of Mulligan is evident on each number and for those who show a preference for jazz of high stature, this waxing is a “must” addition to their library.

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Down Beat : 04/04/1956
Nat Hentoff : 5 stars

Gerry‘s first LP for EmArcy and his first with his current band. In the front line, Gerry, Zoot Sims, Bob Brookmeyer, and Jon Eardley interweave stimulatingly and with assurance in the flowing ensemble passages and behind each other’s solos. All also solo well, although Eardley’s thinnish tone and flow of ideas isn’t up to the major quality of the other three. Listen, incidentally, to Brookmeyer’s intriguingly chorded piano behind Gerry on the eloquent Everything Happens, largely a solo statement by Mulligan. The arrangements are loosely swinging with the accent characteristically on lean linearity rather than lush massed harmonies. There is a rocking ease and yet an almost airy feel to this expert collective interplay. Dave Bailey is on drums, Peck Morrison on bass.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

Gerry Mulligan is a tall (6’1″), thin (145 lbs.), young man with light red hair, pale skin, and an intense dedication toward all that interests him in life. Nothing interests him more than music. At the age of twenty-eight Gerry has been a professional musician for twelve years. In that time of constantly writing for big bands and small he has never written an uncommissioned piece of music. Simultaneously he has become a world famous baritonist, for it may be truly said that on baritone saxophone Gerry Mulligan has no peer.

Gerry’s ever present nemesis is a fear of music stagnation and boredom, and this has served to drive him to move his talents from band to band, playing with and writing for various instrumentations. It was because of this drive that last year, at the completion of a successful summer tour, Gerry disbanded the quartet and took six months off to sit down, regain his perspective, and see what it was he wanted to do next. Gerry’s sextet is the product of that introspective period. It brings together Bob Brookmeyer and Jon Eardley, each of whom has served as the other horn in the Quartet; a bright new rhythm section consisting of Dave Bailey on drums and Peck Morrison on bass, and adds to this the tang of Zoot Sims‘ ever-swinging tenor saxophone playing. Crowning the group is Gerry’s forceful and persuasive musicianship showing itself in his writing and in his playing, both, as ever, warm, intimate, compelling.

Gerry detests having an audience told whether or not a record is good, preferring that his audience judge for themselves. This we leave you to do, merely saying that all who were concerned with the making of this album are delighted with the results.

The Sextet has played nearly all the jazz clubs on the eastern seaboard, completed a concert tour through many of the eastern and mid-western cities, and is scheduled to do a European tour. Then Gerry will undoubtedly retire again, seeking the direction of the next step in his musical journey. I am sure that he himself does not know exactly what it will be. But one thing is sure; more music will be coming from Gerry Mulligan. Much more.