What is There to Say

High-definition premium 180 gram vinyl pressing of this classic Jazz album. Wax Time Records. 2010. What Is There to Say?, was one of the best albums made by Gerry Mulligan with his piano-less quartet featuring Art Farmer. Mulligan had developed the piano-less, small-group sound in a variety of settings with, among others, trumpeter Chet Baker, trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, and saxophonists Paul Desmond and Zoot Sims. The repertoire includes some familiar tunes, like "My Funny Valentine", a standard normally associated with Chet Baker. "What Is There to Say" and "Just in Time", the other standards given the Mulligan overhaul here, are balanced by Mulligan's "As Catch Can", "Festive Minor", and "Utter Chaos", as well as Farmer's "Blueport" and Crow's "News from Blueport". in his 1991 biography of Gerry Mulligan, Listen! Gerry Mulligan, An Aural Narrative in Jazz, Jerome Klinkowitz sang the praises of this album as the "flawlessly executed album that caught the high point of [Mulligan's] improvisatory lyricism." Mulligan's career was almost 14 years along at this point and this was his first work as a leader for major-label Columbia. Mulligan was just coming into his prime as a player, writer and arranger, with What Is There to Say? providing what Klinkowitz described as a slice of "pure Mulligan... exquisite proof of Mulligan's gift as a writer and arranger... as clear an insight into the man and his music as four decades of listening might provide." As a bonus, we have added a rare live version of the title song by the same quartet performed in Sweden shortly after the studio version was made.