"When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins"
About this Quote
It reads like a casual origin story, but it’s also a quiet declaration of lineage. Gerry Mulligan isn’t just naming an early favorite; he’s placing his own ears - and by extension his own authority - inside the tradition. Coleman Hawkins wasn’t background music. He was the moment the saxophone stopped being novelty color and started sounding like a fully adult voice: big tone, harmonic daring, a seriousness that made the instrument feel inevitable.
The phrasing matters. “When I began listening” frames jazz as something you enter deliberately, almost like apprenticeship. Mulligan casts himself first as a listener, not a prodigy, which is a musician’s way of signaling taste and discipline. “First attracted” is equally telling: Hawkins becomes the initial gravitational pull, the force that turns curiosity into commitment. Attraction here isn’t fandom; it’s the shock of recognition - the sense that one player can define what the instrument is capable of.
Context does a lot of work in the background. Mulligan comes up in the post-swing ecosystem that prizes arrangement, cool restraint, and new ensemble textures. Hawkins represents an earlier, brawnier modernity: a bridge from swing to bop, a soloist whose improvisations could sound like architecture. Mulligan’s subtext is respect without nostalgia. He’s pointing to a root system, implying that even the “cool” school’s sophistication begins with the heat and authority of Hawkins’ sound.
The phrasing matters. “When I began listening” frames jazz as something you enter deliberately, almost like apprenticeship. Mulligan casts himself first as a listener, not a prodigy, which is a musician’s way of signaling taste and discipline. “First attracted” is equally telling: Hawkins becomes the initial gravitational pull, the force that turns curiosity into commitment. Attraction here isn’t fandom; it’s the shock of recognition - the sense that one player can define what the instrument is capable of.
Context does a lot of work in the background. Mulligan comes up in the post-swing ecosystem that prizes arrangement, cool restraint, and new ensemble textures. Hawkins represents an earlier, brawnier modernity: a bridge from swing to bop, a soloist whose improvisations could sound like architecture. Mulligan’s subtext is respect without nostalgia. He’s pointing to a root system, implying that even the “cool” school’s sophistication begins with the heat and authority of Hawkins’ sound.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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