Gerry Mulligan: Night Lights (Verve Acoustic Sounds Series) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This Verve Acoustic Sounds Series reissue is remastered on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket. Night Lights is Mulligan at his most relaxed and lyrical, a sextet of his favourite alumni playing ballads and bossa nova.

This edition

• Verve Acoustic Sounds Series
• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket
• Stereo mix

About the album

Some jazz records want your full attention. Night Lights would rather you dimmed the lamps. Gerry Mulligan recorded it in 1963 for Philips with a sextet of old friends: Art Farmer on flugelhorn, Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone, Jim Hall on guitar, Bill Crow on bass and Dave Bailey on drums.

Mulligan swaps his baritone for piano on the title track, a gentle original that sets the mood. "Morning Of The Carnival" brings Luiz Bonfá's melody from Black Orpheus into a soft bossa nova, "Wee Small Hours" is pure late-night balladry, and "Prelude In E Minor" gives Chopin a light Brazilian sway. "Festive Minor" picks up the tempo a touch, and "Tell Me When" closes things gracefully. Hall's guitar and Farmer's warm flugelhorn do a lot of the quiet work around Mulligan's lines, and Brookmeyer's valve trombone adds a soft, burnished glow. Mulligan and Brookmeyer had played together since the 1950s, and that long friendship shows in how easily the horns blend.

Russ Wilson of the Oakland Tribune heard "a lights-out, after-hours feel" and a marvellously pervasive pulse. It's the record for 2 a.m., though it works at 2 p.m. if you draw the curtains and commit.

Also at Kops: more Gerry Mulligan on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Verve (cat# PHS 600-108), a reissue of the 1963 album.