Gerry Mulligan - Night Lights

I first heard this album at my parents' house and was completely taken by it: 34 minutes of focused melodicism over gentle bossa nova or light swing. Dating back to 1963, it is to be consumed like a small delicacy. Perfect lullaby listening.

The soloists, apart from Mulligan, are Bob Brookmeyer and Art Farmer. Farmer is sweeter, Brookmeyer gruffer, but both sing throughout the album. Jim Hall is mainly confined to accompaniment, but gets to take a couple of brief solos. Mulligan's renowned arrangement chops are also subtly on display in the warm brass voicings on certain heads. Oddly, is Chopin's "Prelude in E Minor" is re-worked into a bossa. It sounds nice, of course, but I wonder if Chopin would have recognised his composition. The first and last cuts are renditions of last "Night Lights," but the second one is from 1965 and has Mulligan on clarinet, backed by a different jazz combo and a 10-piece string orchestra.

Of particular enjoyment is Mulligan's incredibly light and soft playing in all registers. Picture the size of the baritone saxophone and try to imagine the instrumental control it takes to power such a big horn with (seemingly) so little air.

While an album such as this may seem to some to be too superficial or easy-listening, I find it to be, on the contrary, quite impressive, in a soft-spoken way. "Night Lights" is a complete, self-contained project that works very well as an album.