Bill Charlap waited until almost the last possible moment in “The Gerry Mulligan Songbook,” a tribute at the 92nd Street Y on Monday night, before divulging a sentimental piece of trivia. It was in that room, he said, where he played his first concert with Mulligan’s quartet, in 1988. The evidence suggests that it was a fine debut: a review in The New York Times singled out Mr. Charlap as “a particularly enlivening element in the group,” adding that “broad gestures, even incipient levitation, helped him milk emotions from the piano.”
Mr. Charlap didn’t levitate this time, but there was plenty of emotion in his solo reading of “Noblesse,” an impressionistic ballad from the late shift of Mulligan’s career. And in many ways Mr. Charlap’s bandstand experience informed the entire program, part of Jazz in July, a concert series he has produced for the last five years.
The Gerry Mulligan most often celebrated in popular jazz lore was a peerless baritone saxophonist as well as an arranger given to terse polyphony. Mr. Charlap made some gestures along those lines. There was a baritone surrogate in Gary Smulyan, who has Mulligan’s litheness but a coarser and murkier tone. There were numbers for a pianoless quartet, the format made famous by Mulligan and Chet Baker, with Mr. Smulyan puttering alongside the trumpeter Jeremy Pelt. There were charts for a plush front line that also included Jerry Dodgion on alto saxophone and Harry Allen on tenor.
But notwithstanding a few exceptions — like “Festive Minor” and “A Ballad,” both in the concert’s second half — all of that felt faintly dutiful, even rote. Most of the evening’s more engrossing moments involved the piano, with or without horns. Mr. Charlap spun gold not only out of “Noblesse” but also another ballad, “Curtains,” which he played with his trio. Ted Rosenthal, who succeeded Mr. Charlap in Mulligan’s employ, did the same with “Lonesome Boulevard,” prefacing its melody with a gleaming rumination.
Mr. Charlap didn’t levitate this time, but there was plenty of emotion in his solo reading of “Noblesse,” an impressionistic ballad from the late shift of Mulligan’s career. And in many ways Mr. Charlap’s bandstand experience informed the entire program, part of Jazz in July, a concert series he has produced for the last five years.
The Gerry Mulligan most often celebrated in popular jazz lore was a peerless baritone saxophonist as well as an arranger given to terse polyphony. Mr. Charlap made some gestures along those lines. There was a baritone surrogate in Gary Smulyan, who has Mulligan’s litheness but a coarser and murkier tone. There were numbers for a pianoless quartet, the format made famous by Mulligan and Chet Baker, with Mr. Smulyan puttering alongside the trumpeter Jeremy Pelt. There were charts for a plush front line that also included Jerry Dodgion on alto saxophone and Harry Allen on tenor.
But notwithstanding a few exceptions — like “Festive Minor” and “A Ballad,” both in the concert’s second half — all of that felt faintly dutiful, even rote. Most of the evening’s more engrossing moments involved the piano, with or without horns. Mr. Charlap spun gold not only out of “Noblesse” but also another ballad, “Curtains,” which he played with his trio. Ted Rosenthal, who succeeded Mr. Charlap in Mulligan’s employ, did the same with “Lonesome Boulevard,” prefacing its melody with a gleaming rumination.
