Billboard : 11/10/1962
Jazz Spotlight Album

Modern jazz listeners should welcome this one with open arms. It spotlights two of the most eloquent witty and swinging jazz musicians in jazz today playing together. Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, on alto and tenor sax respectively, have a soft, breezy and yet thoughtful album here six tracks long. They are accompanied only by drums and bass and both are given to easy, relaxed improvisations on standards and originals. Stardust and All The Things You Are are representative of the first, with Blight of the Fumble Bee indicative of the latter.

—–

Cashbox : 12/08/1962

Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, two of modern jazzdom’s outstanding soloists, are melodically united on this informal, easy going Victor set. Desmond’s free-flowing alto perfectly blends with Mulligan’s rich baritone sounds in some exciting improvisation counterpoint passages. There’s a warm camaraderie as the two swing skillfully on All The Things You Are, Stardust and The Way You Look Tonight. A top-rung jazz effort.

—–

Audio
Charles A. Robertson : April, 1963

If a couple of intellects ever hit upon a fresh viewpoint while seated in front of a television camera discussing burning issues of the day, the conversation might possibly develop into something as enlightening as this joint commentary by Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan on a group of six songs. The themes are less momentous than those usually selected for televised forums, but both soloists bring original ideas and new insight to to subjects which have been covered exhaustively before. One standard prop in studios of all types is a table bearing liquid refreshment, and home viewers often speculate on the alcoholic content of certain teapots shown on camera with distinguished guests. The recording fraternity has no need to practice such deception and rarely bothers to hide plainly marked bottles or soggy coffee containers. Jazz originals are another matter though, and the number of times a popular song has gone under a different name is an accurate test of its durability. In this case, a venerbal Vincent Youmans hit supplies the basis for the album title and does a good housekeeping job by providing teacups to conceal the color of any beverages poured at the session.

The presence of Judy Holliday in the control room could hardly be the reason for observing the properties, as the fair visitor brought up the title for the only other original, Blight of the Fumble Bee. And if the cause of hyumor must be served still further in the course of one fast blues, listeners can register a mild compliant at the pace by insert a quote from Don’t Ever Leave Me. The phrase serves equally well as an expression of sentiment about the entire affair, which like all good things is far too brief. “Classic-to-be collaboratoin” is the way the liner billing reads, and the prediction is less far fetched than a first glance would indicate. Especially memorable is Stardust, in a version designed to defy both the ravages of time and the coming invasion by flights of space vehicles.

Pianoless quartets are no longer much of a novelty and draw only passing comment in comparison to all that was written when Mulligan and Chet Baker first tried working with just a bassist and a drummer. Progress has been too gradual since then for any great bursts of journalistic attention, but the peak of attention attained here for combinations of this kind should not go unheralded. The two saxophonists are eminently suited to the joining of forces in superb tonal blends, or exploiting the sharp contrast inherent in Desmond’s alto and Mulligan’s baritone. Stereo is helpful in achieving either effect, and Desmond utilizes it still further to add an extra track on the final choruses of The Way You Look Tonight. Wendell Marshall, Joe Benjamin, John Beal, Mel Lewis and Connie Kay all take turns on the rhythmic side of the table.

—–

Harper’s Magazine
Eric Larrabee : January, 1963

Perhaps there is no such thing as the perfect record, but until one comes along, this will do. It is among the several benefits so far accruing from the arrival of George Avakian (for many years jazz artist-and-repertory man at Columbia) at RCA Victor. It is absurdly simple: two saxophones, with unobtrusive rhythm backing, for a total of six songs – no gimmicks in the selection of the music, no far-out sound effects, no single personality trying to drown out all the others.

These two men can work well together because, among other reasons, they know who they are when apart. Each is a thoroughly self-confident soloist and doesn’t have to waste any time informing you of it. And they sound different. One of the tribal ordeals of jazz is to go through records trying to spot the solos when two or more men are playing the same instrument. It is fine exercise but artistically absurd, since the whole point of a duet is the differences – and the delight comes from interweaving.

Paul Desmond plays alto and Gerry Mulligan plays baritone, and you shouldn’t have much trouble telling them apart. Pitch aside, each has a sharply individualistic sound: Desmond’s open and almost sweet. Mulligan’s with more vibrato, broad and light. Each of them is something of a joker, with a well-stocked musical mind and a tendency to toss around familiar tunes to see what can be made of them. These are witty men, and this record is loaded with their wit from start to finish.

The way they listen to each other is a pure, unmitigated joy to hear – picking up each other’s phrases, running them upside down and inside out, and handing them half-absent-mindedly back, as though to say: “Did you drop something?” And all of this is done without the least upstaging or self-assertiveness, so that Mulligan for one plays with just as much art, or more, when he is doing a double-pianissimo obbligato behind one of Desmond’s solos.

Such elegant interplay is not uncommon in jazz, but rarely is it so audible and explicit. The liner notes, as liner notes will, call this “a classic-to-be collaboration.” For once I wouldn’t be surprised if they were right.

—–

HiFi / Stereo Review
Joe Goldberg : March, 1963

In 1957, when Gerry Mulligan was meeting other saxophonists regularly on the Verve label, he recorded with Paul Desmond. Five years later, Desmond, who records for Victor when he is not involved with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, has returned the invitation.

The intervening years have added authority to Desmond’s playing and economy to Mulligan’s. The new record is far superior to the first, with more vigor and definition. Four standards – all of them Desmond-Brubeck favorites, a blues, and an original based on a standard make up the program. Here, in the company of Mulligan and far better rhythm sections than Brubeck has had, Desmond reaches heights in his special wispy lyricism and wry humor. Mulligan, in bumptious contrast, is as good as he has ever been.

The delight of the record is the casual counterpoint that the two constantly toss back and forth, a display of an unusual musical empathy that justifies the album’s title. The atmosphere could not be more friendly and relaxed: a witty, amiable conversation between two jazz musicians of the highest order.

—–

High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : February, 1963

These six duets by Desmond and Mulligan were apparently recorded on at least three separate occasions, for three different rhythm sections (in this instance, only bass and drums) are heard accompanying them. The rhythm sections create most of the variety here. Connie Kay, the Modern Jazz Quartet drummer, plays on three pieces with two different bassists, and provides the saxophonists with a strong, rolling foundation over which they seem to ride with airy ease. The drummer in the third rhythm section, Mel Lewis, a superb performer in a big-band context, seems relatively pedestrian in this quartet setting. As for the two principals, their duet passages are neatly and sinuously woven, with Mulligan returning to the rather light tone he used with his original quartet. When they go off on their solos, Desmond manages to soar into graceful, singing passages with consistent success, but Mulligan’s solo efforts have a despondently colorless air dissipated only on a brightly swinging tune called Blight of the Fumble Bee.

—–

San Antonio Light
Renwicke Cary : 01/20/1963

Paul Desmond (alto sax) and Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax), who have done so much toward winning converts to new jazz concepts in recent years, are teamed in the RCA Victor album, Two of a Mind, engaging in some astonishing improvisation in counterpoint on the title selection and on All the Things You Are, Stardust, Blight of the Fumble Bee (jazz virtuosos must have their little jokes, you know), The Way You Look Tonight and Out of Nowhere.

—–

Down Beat : 01/17/1963
Harvey Pekar : 4 stars

Both horn men were in good form for this session.

Mulligan apparently has a bottomless bag of melodic ideas and resolves them intelligently, never leaving phrases to hang in mid-air. Rhythmically, his playing is not so interesting. His method of accenting often falls into a predictable pattern, and he sometimes uses corny syncopated figures. Here he is especially lyrical on Nowhere and Stardust.

Desmond takes a pair of exquisite solos on Stardust. He is particularly reminiscent of Lee Konitz on the second. His Nowhere spot also deserves special attention, but there are times when his playing is cloying (Tonight, Fumble Bee). His technique of repeating or toying with phrases frequently strikes me as precious, and it often interrupts the continuity of his solo.

Every track contains improvised polyphony that generally comes off well.

All the Things features a pleasing arrangement. The A section is simplified and the melody statement split between Desmond and Mulligan in pointillist fashion. Desmond plays the bridge, with Mulligan providing countermelodic statements.

The various rhythm sections play with fine group feeling. Dig the way Benjamin on Stardust and Beal on Fumble keep things moving. Kay gets a beautiful cymbal sound on the latter track.

—–

Liner Notes by George Avakian

Two of the finest talents to emerge in the post-war jazz generation are brought together here for a happy, informal, yet earnest session of music-making. Individually, Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan can look back at a decade of winning jazz polls – Paul as the alto saxophonist of the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Gerry as a baritone saxophonist who has led his own group for many years, ranging from a quartet to a full-sized band.

In this era when television ratings, trade publication charts, and popularity polls have become impossible to ignore if one earns a livelihood in the light arts, it is rare to find such camaraderie between two star performers as this collaborative album exudes. Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan are not only old friends who came up about the same time on the big-time jazz scene, but their strong feelings about the role of ensemble playing in jazz makes them ideal partners for a get-together such as this. There is never the slightest hint of a “cutting” session; always they work together toward the same ensemble conception, even though each is also one of the greatest soloists in jazz today.

In a way, this album is a recollection of the best elements of two of the most popular and musically successful groups of the middle 1950s – the period when modern jazz first blossomed into large-scale public acceptance. The Dave Brubeck Quartet and the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet were the leading exponents at that time of contrapuntal jazz. The polyphonic duets of Desmond and Brubeck in the one group and of Mulligan and Baker in the other broke new ground and did it with high quality as well as spectacular flair. In this album, the saxophonist of the respective combinations have taken a similar approach and, with a clean sureness and an inspirational spark born of close compatibility and the ease of long experience, they bring the technique of improvisation in counterpoint to a new height.

But, at the same time, both Desmond and Mulligan are solo improvisers with great melodic gifts. The result is a series of sweeping performances in which something exciting is happening every instant, whether it be a solo of keen inventiveness or a duet passage in which each line stands up by itself within a whole that sounds like the work of a craftsman composer.

Informality in jazz often means over-casualness, carelessness, or downright sloppiness. These recordings are unusually neat and clean even though they are highly informal. There had been a considerable advance discussion of repertoire, and each of the saxophonists brought along sketches for some of the tunes (although, except for some beginnings and endings, mostly Gerry’s, they weren’t used.) But there the formality ceased. Final decisions on what tunes would be played and how they were to be treated were made in the studio. And here, as in the discussion that preceded the sessions, there was a Gaston-and-Alphonse deference between Paul and Gerry, typical of their uncompetitive relationship. “What tempo do you like?” “Oh, I don’t know. What do you like?” Or, “You take the first chorus.” “No, I started the last one. You go first this time.”

There was plenty of relaxed fun in the studio during during the sessions. Both Paul and Gerry are quick wits and quicker still is Judy Holliday, who was a welcome visitor in the control room. While no one kept track of the quips that flew about during the sessions, one bit is preserved in the title of the fast blues that opens the second side of this album. While it was being played back one of the engineers asked Paul what the title was. “I don’t know” he said, “it’s a tune by Gerry.” Just then the tape reached the climax of the counterpoint passage in the chorus before the boys came back to the melody. “We might have to call it “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” somebody said. “Or,” said Judy thoughtfully, “Blight of the Fumble Bee.“

It is rather pointless to recite in these notes a roll of the passages that pass in review as you listen to this extraordinary album. Suffice it to say that there are moments of rare beauty which will grow on you with repeated listening. The album is also a lot of fun; time and again, in the counterpoint passages, the boys will seem about to play an idea into an obvious corner, but they will let you hear just enough of what you might expect to let you know that they know that you know – and then they’re off on a wholly fresh idea. You can also have a lot of fun with your friends letting them guess the tunes which are never actually played in these performances – I’ve caught quite a few people with Stardust and The Way You Look Tonight. But Paul and Gerry have a game for you, too – do you have any idea what tune Two of a Mind really is?

But the real kick in this album is to follow the invertible counterpoint and the marvelously flowing solos of these two superb improvisers. The interplay between them reaches an unusual height in The Way You Look Tonight, when Paul, as an afterthought, added a third saxophone line (stereo owners can hear it in the center channel) for the last two choruses of the performance. The way Paul and Gerry work together never ceases to fascinate, even when one drops into a distinctly subordinate role, as when Gerry backs up the last five choruses of Paul’s long solo in Bee. It is a safe assumption that only an arranger of Gerry’s caliber could have done so much so unobtrusively and with so few notes.

The rhythm section in these performances varied from session to session because the recordings had to be made in sessions several weeks apart during the summer of 1962; as Paul and Gerry traveled in and out of town for their respective engagements, so did the other musicians, so that it was never possible to get the same men together at the same time. In fact, the dates always seemed to take place as one principal was unpacking a suitcase and the other was about to catch a plane. Wendell Marshall and Connie Kay play bass and drums respectively on All the Things You Are; they are replaced by Joe Benjamin and Mel Lewis for Stardust, Two of a Mind, and Out of Nowhere; John Beal and Connie Kay are heard in Blight of the Fumble Bee and The Way You Look Tonight.