In need of cash in the late 1940s, Gerry Mulligan sold bandleader Elliot Lawrence a trove of his arrangements. As Elliot told me in an interview before his death in 2021, "Early on, I had bought all of Gerry's arrangements. I paid him $50 per chart. If he wrote an original and arranged it, I’d pay him $150. Naturally, I signed up the publishing so they would remain with my band."
One of those Mulligan arrangements was the masterful But Not for Me, which the Elliot Lawrence band first recorded in 1950 for an Armed Forces Radio Service Transcription called "Land's Best Bands." Elliot's first studio recording of the song came on July 1, 1955, for Fantasy Records.
The all-star band on that date: Nick Travis, Bernie Glow, Al Derisi and Stan Fishelson (tp); Eddie Bert, Ollie Wilson and Paul Selden (tb); Tony Miranda (fhr); Sam Marowitz and Hal McKusick (as); Al Cohn and Eddie Wasserman (ts); Charlie O'Kane (bar); Elliot Lawrence (p); Buddy Jones (b); Don Lamond (d) and Gerry Mulligan (arr). As far as I can tell, the solos in order are by Elliot Lawrence, Hal McKusick, Nick Travis and Al Cohn.
Here's But Not for Me, featuring Mulligan's superb reed writing...
Other Perfection tracks in this ongoing series...
- Paul Desmond and Jim Hall: Any Other Time, go here.
- John Coltrane: You Say You Care, go here.
- Quincy Jones: Funk Junction, go here.
- Art Farmer's Work of Art, go here.
- Miles Davis: A Gal in Calico, go here.
- Gene Krupa: Mulligan Stew, go here.
- Dave Brubeck: The Duke, go here.
- Horace Silver: The Back Beat, go here.
- Horace Parlan: Up & Down, go here.
- Dexter Gordon: Society Red, go here.
- Barney Kessel: You Go to My Head, go here.
- Count Basie: Corner Pocket, go here.
- Herbie Mann: Manteca, go here.
- Donald Byrd: Bronze Dance, go here.
- George Shearing: I'll Be Around, go here.
- Ammons & Stitt: You Talk That Talk, go here.
- Count Basie: Blues in My Heart, go here.
- Moonlight in Vermont, go here.
- Johnny Griffin / Matthew Gee, Here, go here.
- Jimmy Smith / Stanley Turrentine, When I Grow Too Old to Dream, go here.
- Chet Baker: Estate, go here.
- Jazz Studio 1: Tenderly, go here.
- Herb Pomeroy: Down Home Outing, go here.
- Frank Sinatra: There's a Small Hotel, go here.
- Bill Harris Herd: Blackstrap, go here.
- Gerry Mulligan: Westwood Walk, go here.
- Red Garland/Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis: We'll Be Together Again, go here.
- Bill Evans: Reflections in D, go here.
- Ted McNabb & Co.: Mountain Greenery, go here.
- Maynard Ferguson: Fox Hunt, go here.
- Serge Chaloff & the Herdsmen: The Most!, go here.
- Maynard Ferguson: Starfire, go here.
- Urbie Green, Please, go here.
- Machito, Conversation, go here.
- David Allyn, Love Is a Serious Thing, go here.
- Lennie Tristano, Wow, go here.
- Teddy Charles, Borodin Bossa Nova, go here.
- Gerry Mulligan, Night Lights, go here.
- Tommy Flanagan, In the Blue of Evening, go here.
- Stan Getz, Stella by Starlight, go here.
- Erroll Garner, It's the Talk of the Town, go here.
- Sonny Stitt, Miss Ann, Lisa, Sue and Sadie, go here.
- Phil Urso, P.U. Stomp, go here.
- Jimmy Forrest, Soul Street, go here.
- Harry James, late 1950s/early '60s, go here.
- Hal McKusick, You're Everywhere, go here.
- Dexter Gordon, I Want More, go here.
- Keely Smith: The Song Is You, go here.