Creativity Quote by Gerry Mulligan

There’s a musician’s shrug baked into Gerry Mulligan’s line, and it’s doing more work than it seems. “New York is still where I live most of the time” isn’t a love letter to a city; it’s a matter-of-fact admission that the center of gravity hasn’t moved, even if the person has. The key word is “still” - a small, stubborn hinge that suggests recurring departures, touring itineraries, maybe flirtations with other scenes, and the inevitable return to the place that keeps calling the tune.

For a jazz artist of Mulligan’s era, New York wasn’t just an address. It was an ecosystem: clubs, studios, sidemen, critics, record labels, late-night sit-ins, and the constant audition that is simply being present. Saying he lives there “most of the time” carries the working musician’s realism: home is a percentage, not a fixed point. The phrasing also sidesteps mythology. Mulligan, associated with the West Coast cool jazz label at points in his career, doesn’t lean into regional branding. He quietly reasserts that whatever narratives get stapled onto your sound, the industry’s nerve center - the place where reputations are made, revised, and sometimes rescued - remains New York.

Subtextually, it’s a claim to legitimacy without chest-thumping. He’s not declaring dominance; he’s stating jurisdiction. In jazz, that understatement is its own kind of flex.