Billboard : 03/03/1956
Spotlight on…. selection

Bernie’s Tune and The Lady Is a Tramp, included here, are also in the Mulligan Sextet EmArcy set reviewed last week, but Mulligan fans will probably welcome the different sets of solos by the bari star and trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. Altho the trumpet and tenor are absent here, the electricity of the live concert performances is a big plus. No Mulligan releases for many months, and now two top-flight LPs in two weeks – and both should sell very well.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 04/01/1956

Peu d’orchestres de jazz ont connu une consecration aussi rapide et realise aussi vite autour d’eux l’unanimite des amateurs de jazz que le Gerry Mulligan Quartet.

In other words, they hardly make combos that can win fans and get to the top as fast as this one did.

The continental occasion is the release by Pacific Jazz of a 12-inch LP called Gerry Mulligan Quartet – Paris Concert, an excellent tape of the American baritone sax star’s contribution to the Third Paris Jazz Festival. You’ll be glad they preserved it because the young redhead really got with it that night back in 1954. Riding with him are Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone; Red Mitchell, bass, and Frank Isola, drums. The album has a pleasant balance of originals and standards.

The recorded applause of a digging audience helps take you back in time to that night of throbbing jazz at the Salle Pleyel the summer of 1954.

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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
Wilder Hobson : 03/31/1956

The superb quartet of baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan needs no introduction at this point, but whereas he has usually been joined by trumpet and rhythm, he played his famous Paris concert in June 1954, with valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer in place of a trumpet. The recorded results show a flashing rapport between the two, with the backing of bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Frank Isola. The gaiety of this polyphony is hard to beat.

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Down Beat : 03/21/1956
Nat Hentoff : 5 stars

A record of a Paris Concert, specifically a June 1, 1954, event at Paris’ Salle Pleyel, part of the third Paris Jazz festival. Drummer is Frank Isola, with Red Mitchell on bass and Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone. So far as I know, this is the only recording available of the quartet with Brookmeyer as the complementary horn (although Bob and Gerry have recorded together in other contexts).

Although Gerry has since wisely gone on beyond the limitations inherent in this kind of quartet, it’s valuable to have a record of the quartet at its height in that Brookmeyer is a more creative, thinking musician than were any of his predecessors in the unit. As a result, Mulligan is also extended, and the playing of the two throughout is a stimulating, sinewy set of superior examples of the art of modern collective linear improvisation. Both are also creating soloists with guts and jazz roots. (Dig the more vigorous than heretofore quartet version of Moonlight and those moving Shoes).

Mitchell is excellent (he also has a fine solo on Love Me. Isola could flow more, but he’s a steady bass. The set includes the whole scene with the applause and even some of Gerry’s well-intentioned French. Generally good recoded sound. Notes are by Charles Delaunay, head of France’s Jazz-Hot.

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Liner Notes by Charles Delaunay

Few bands have shot to the top and won the unanimous acclaim of jazz fans as quickly as has the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.

It was with some apprehension, therefore, that we looked forward to their appearance at the Salle Pleyel on June 1, 1954, as part of the Third Paris Jazz Festival, for we have been disappointed more than once by famous soloists or big name bands from America.

Having heard only records, and knowing what marvelous results modern recording techniques can produce, weren’t we going to be disappointed by a personal appearance? Would such a reduced combo be able to project beyond the footlights in as large and cold a hall as the Salle Pleyel?

All these fears melted away as if by magic the moment the Gerry Mulligan Quartet launched into the first bars of Come Out Wherever You Are, with which they opened the first concert of the Jazz Festival that memorable evening of June 1, 1954.

Something very unusual happened – for a jazz concert: the audience was seized at once by a sort of rapt fervor, and a real communion was established between the public and the band. It was as if the audience had suddenly put aside its customary boisterousness to give complete attention to a really special musical treat.

Don’t think for a moment that the public was indifferent. If you were present at the concert you certainly will remember the glowing faces around you, and the unprecedented applause given Mulligan and his Quartet. But you will remember too the respect which their music aroused in the audience, who realized that something unusual was taking place that evening.

Unlike so many modern musicians who look desperately worried by their music, the members of the Mulligan Quartet frankly showed their pleasure in playing. Their behavior wasn’t at all stiff or affected, but natural – and on that account was actually spectacular, for those four boys easily dominated the enormous stage of the Salle Pleyel, with no need of the cheap showmanship which often debases even the best jazz to the level of music hall or circus entertainment.

Their music, simple and tasteful, surprised us pleasantly by its freshness and its spontaneity, and also by the effective swing of the rhythm section.

This simplicity is probably the secret of their success. Subtle and full of nuances, the melodic lines of Gerry Mulligan and Bob Brookmeyer weave in and out, melt together, and oppose each other, but remain easy to follow. The average listener, who often gets lost in the intricacies of modern jazz arrangements, has no trouble following the melody and the variations worked out by the soloists.

Since we were already familiar through recordings with his instrumental style, Gerry Mulligan himself wasn’t perhaps such a surprise, but this Third Jazz Festival introduced us to Bob Brookmeyer’s rich improvisations. Red Mitchell‘s swinging bass was impressive, Frank Isola‘s drumming was easy and varied.

The recorded selects some of the most distinctive numbers the Mulligan Quartet played that night, some previously unrecorded such as Come Out Wherever You Are and Laura. Some others recorded while Chet Baker was a member of the Quartet are Five Brothers, Love Me Or Leave Me, Bernie’s Tune, Walkin’ Shoes, Moonlight In Vermont and The Lady Is A Tramp.

But what strikes us most in listening to this record is its exceptional technical quality, equaling the best American recordings of public performances, for it recreates for us that rapt enthusiasm which greeted every concert of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in the Salle Pleyel in June, 1954.