Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan is, to me, the conscience of cool jazz. He took the baritone saxophone, a heavy and ungainly instrument, and made it float with an airy lightness no one had imagined. His pianoless quartet was a quietly radical idea, and his arranging work on Birth of the Cool helped reshape the music's direction entirely. Grammy wins and a Hall of Fame induction only confirm what the recordings already prove. Decades after his death in 1996, his tone remains timeless. He is the artist I reach for on rainy nights, and I suspect I always will.

Name (English)

Gerry Mulligan

Name (Japanese)

ジェリー・マリガン

Reading

じぇりー・まりがん

Born

April 6, 1927 – January 20, 1996

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Rabbit

Origin

New York City, New York, United States

Occupation

composer / saxophonist / jazz musician / music arranger / conductor

High school

West Philadelphia Catholic High School

Awards & achievements

• Grammy Awards
• American Jazz Hall of Fame

• Official sitehttp://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/1724/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry%20Mulligan
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AC%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q156535

Tags

• New York
• composer
• saxophonist
• jazz musician

Last updated

2026-06-21

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.