Gerry Mulligan

“I'm fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.”

“I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.”

“The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.”

“Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.”

“New York is still where I live most of the time.”

“Because if you've got the wit, you can make anything into a melody, ultimately.”

“The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.”

“The other saxophones, except as solo instruments, really don't have much point in the orchestra.”

“I've always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.”

“This life of being a transient human being has gotten to a point when it's very hard to bear.”

“You start way down on a low B flat on the tuba and you have a chromatic scale; you can match the colours all the way up, till you get to the top of the trumpet.”

“Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.”

“People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time.”

“When we've finished the current tour I'm going to go back to Italy and see if I can do some more writing.”

“In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it's the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what's available, what somebody happens to play for you.”

“You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.”

“When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.”

“It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.”

“In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.”

“If you've only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.”