Sixty years ago today, baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan wrapped the recording session for What Is There To Say?, his last “pianoless” quartet album of the 1950s. The album featured Art Farmer on trumpet, Bill Crow on bass and Dave Bailey on drums, and was praised for its intimate yet incendiary energy. The title track moves at a gently swinging clip, brisk enough to generate heat but slow and spacious enough to stretch out and get creative. For Mulligan and his crew, that’s a formula for magic.
