Gerry Mulligan - Night Lights (SHM-CD Japanese Remastered 2007)

Jazz people look for beauty and offer love. Listen to the Cinderella songs they prefer. My Funny Valentine, for example: hidden for years and barely nourished by the gentility, this perfect maid, this dream of a cook, was first rescued and introduced around by Gerry Mulligan. We knew she was pretty, but Gerry saw her soul.The early Mulligan Quartet's Valentine is mother of the six performances here. Morning of the Carnival, from Brazil; Prelude in E Minor, from Poland, in Brazilian dress. In the Wee Small Hours, from the solitary side of the swinging Sinatra; Tell Me When, from the honey pocket of the salty Ben Webster. And Gerry's own two originals: Festive Minor, the last set at the club; and Night Lights (Gerry playing piano), back home. Each from a different seed; all related. Whatever they were, now they are songs of love.Musicians know of rooms around the world where lights are low, and tables too. They find them when the gig is through, to talk and drink and smile. The sandy :ounds of dancing feet are loudest in the room. You know the scene.Remember, once, a room so dark the street outside the window glared by contrast? Doors were locked, the air was sweet, the cigarette was shared. And maybe there was Thornhill's Snowfall, Dusk, by lington, Our Waltz, by David Rose, or Moonlight Serenade.The bands are not the same. The songs are new. But nothing's really changed.