Gerry Mulligan: La plus que lente

During the mid-1950s, Gerry Mulligan expanded his famous pianoless quartet to a pianoless sextet, allowing a return to the Birth of the Cool chamber orchestral ambience for which Mulligan had been largely responsible. The sextet's pièce de résistance was a transcription of Debussy's waltz for piano "La plus que lente" (1910). Gil Evans's arrangement, however, is neither waltz nor "more than slow" (title translation), but a tango, which was all the rage in 1910 Paris. True to the French Impressionist spirit, Mulligan and Evans make "La plus que lente" a ne plus ultra of modern jazz. Monsieur Claude, meet Messrs. Cool.