Creativity Quote by Gerry Mulligan

That little phrase "mess around with" quietly rewires how we’re supposed to imagine a jazz elder statesman. Gerry Mulligan isn’t talking like a solemn gatekeeper of the “real” acoustic tradition; he’s talking like a curious kid in a lab. The intent is disarmingly practical: electronics are not a threat to musicianship, they’re a new set of handles, knobs, and accidents to play with. And in jazz, accidents aren’t bugs. They’re raw material.

The subtext is a refusal of nostalgia. Mulligan built his name on an airy, West Coast cool that prized clarity and conversation, yet the sentence frames technology as another conversational partner rather than an invading army. “Fascinated” signals wonder, not anxiety. “Devices” keeps it open-ended - synthesizers, effects, recording gear, whatever arrives next. Most telling is the modesty of “we can”: it’s communal, not proprietary. He’s placing electronics inside the bandstand, not above it.

Context matters. Mulligan lived through the full 20th-century arc of recorded sound: from 78s and radio to multitrack studios, pedals, and the MIDI era. By the time jazz was busy litigating authenticity against fusion, pop, and the machine, he’s sidestepping the courtroom. The line works because it demotes technology from ideology to instrument. Not “the future of music,” not “the death of jazz” - just tools to tinker with, and a mindset that keeps improvisation alive offstage, too.