Weekend Song – Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan’s baritone sax sounds like nothing else in music. He has made it his own, like Larry Adler on harmonica, or Earl Scruggs on banjo, or Milt Jackson on vibraphone.

He always sounds like an old friend, which in ways this song is, since it always makes me smile. It’s his tune and a collaborative rendition with Johnny Hodges, but the way the baritone creeps in for the solo makes me smile in this song, which is about as cool as anything can sound.

It’s a corny kind of cool. It’s Eric Morecambe. It’s dark sunglasses. It’s half-time optimism. It’s long weekends in the summer whether nothing much happens but it could. It’s a sober silliness.

Listen: Bunny

—
Related pages
Weekend Song archive