Creativity Quote by Gerry Mulligan

Mulligan’s jab at “innovations and evolutions” lands like a jazz solo that refuses to play the assignment. He’s swatting away the tidy museum labels critics love - bebop “replacing” swing, cool jazz “arriving” after hard bop - and insisting on something messier and more musicianly: the toolkit was never taken off the table. Calling it “nonsense” isn’t anti-progress so much as anti-hype. It’s a rejection of the marketing logic that treats art like software updates.

The line “all instruments are there to use all the time” is doing double duty. Literally, it’s a reminder that timbre and orchestration aren’t bound by era: a baritone sax, a clarinet, a string section, a human voice can be deployed whenever the music asks for it. Culturally, it’s a defense of eclecticism against the genre police. Mulligan came up in a mid-century scene obsessed with newness, where credibility often meant declaring allegiance to the latest “movement.” His own career - arranging, composing, playing in small groups and big ensembles, bridging swing-era craft with modern harmony - makes the point credible: he lived the idea that tradition isn’t a cage, it’s inventory.

Subtext: stop confusing novelty with imagination. Jazz’s real engine isn’t a linear march forward; it’s recombination - old colors in new light, new attitudes inside familiar forms. Mulligan’s quip quietly restores agency to the musician: history doesn’t dictate what you’re “allowed” to play. Your ears do.