Creativity Quote by Gerry Mulligan

There is a sly shrug baked into Mulligan's "I guess": the sound of a player making an observation that’s also a small jab at orchestral habit. As a baritone saxophonist who built an identity around the middle register, Mulligan is pointing at a cultural blind spot in mainstream orchestration: the orchestra loves its extremes. High voices (violins, flutes) get the shine; low voices (cellos, basses, bassoons) carry the gravity. The in-between is often treated as glue, not a feature.

Calling out the French isn’t random Francophilia. French orchestral writing has a reputation for color as an end in itself - Ravel, Debussy, Berlioz: composers who treat timbre like light, who are willing to let "inner voices" step forward and become the point. Tenor and alto instruments in that tradition aren’t merely supporting harmony; they’re surfaces with their own sensuality, allowed to speak with a human, reedy specificity.

The subtext is also a jazz musician’s critique of classical conservatism. In jazz, the tenor and alto registers are frontline personalities - they’re where you hear breath, grain, argument. Mulligan is nudging the idea that orchestras, especially outside France, too often domesticate that register, smoothing it into "blend". It’s a comment about national style, yes, but also about risk: who gets to be vivid, and who is asked to behave.