How to Paint a Portrait of Jazz Musician Gerry Mulligan

Video Transcript

"On behalf of expertvillage.com I'm Bob Copeland and we are continuing to discuss the paintings that I do of jazz and blues musicians. The one that I'm holding right now is the great baritone saxophonies Gerry Mulligan. This picture, this photograph was taking just before his death about 10 years ago. He was unusual and the baritone sax is very heavy instrument that you don't see it too much compare to the tenner and alto which are much more common. Mulligan came onto the scene after Korean conflict in the early 50s which Chet Baker the trumpet player, they were from the same school as Dave Brubeck and his quartet. What they called west coast jazz or cool jazz. It was a different sound that was coming out of Chicago, Saint Louis, or New York or New Orleans. It was a little bit more up tempo, just a totally different sound he recorded a lot with Chet Baker, he was a composer as well as a saxophone player. A very tall man, if you know the resemblance there even when I'm not where my sunglasses, he was white haired and so am I. But he was an incredible talented man and played with Paul Desmond, he did some few recordings with Paul Desmond the great altos and like I said composed a lot of music. This one totally made up here again black and white photo totally made in color, well I would just put on a brown jacket, I will use a purple background. I love purple. But did something totally different colored wise than what I have done in any previous pieces. But I kind of like it, it is different, it is larger than what it looks and here again this is a musician who I personally hold in high regards so I put him on canvas. "