Quotes By Gerry Mulligan

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.

The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.

If you've only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

The recording industry has changed; they're enjoying such incredible success in the pop field.

So I played alto for quite a while until I saved up the money for the baritone.

The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.

When we've finished the current tour I'm going to go back to Italy and see if I can do some more writing.

People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time.

The baritone can serve functions that the alto and tenor cannot, in orchestral voicing.

I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.

Because if you've got the wit, you can make anything into a melody, ultimately.

I've always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.

The other saxophones, except as solo instruments, really don't have much point in the orchestra.

In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it's the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what's available, what somebody happens to play for you.

I've appeared on some other people's albums.

Actually, it is a fact that I've been doing more writing than playing in recent years.

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.

People are approaching electronic levels in music; although not all of it happens to tickle my fancy.

It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

Eliminating the piano means that I've always worked closer with the bass than most players.

You start way down on a low B flat on the tuba and you have a chromatic scale; you can match the colours all the way up, till you get to the top of the trumpet.

In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.

I'm fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.

New York is still where I live most of the time.

Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.

This life of being a transient human being has gotten to a point when it's very hard to bear.

When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.