"Alyn Shipton is a writer, publisher, broadcaster and researcher, as well as a jazz musician. Since 2012 he has hosted BBC Radio 3's ""Jazz Record Requests"", the longest running jazz programme in the world. He previously hosted the BBC World Service show ""Jazzmatazz"" reaching over 150 million listeners worldwide, and earning him the Marian McPartland/ Willis Conover Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz Broadcasting from the Jazz Journalists' Association. Throughout his career he has been a publisher, specialising in music, and was responsible for the Grove musical dictionaries during the 1980s including being Associate Editor for the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (1988). His books Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie (1999) and Nilsson: The Life of a Singer Songwriter (2013) each won Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Awards for Excellence; and he is furthermore the recipient of an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thompson Award for his book about Harry Nilsson. His most recent work is The Art of Jazz: A Visual History (2020). He has taught jazz history at Oxford Brookes University, City University (London), and is currently Lecturer in Jazz History and Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music. As a bassist, Alyn has performed and recorded with numerous bands, including a long association with the British jazz trumpeter Ken Colyer, tours with American stars such as Bud Freeman, Herbie Hall and Don Ewell, and most recently, co-leading the Buck Clayton Legacy Band, playing music bequeathed to him by the great swing trumpeter."
"Alyn Shipton has produced a well-researched, excellently detailed study of Mulligan's quartets. A very enjoyable read. * Bill Crow, author of From Birdland to Broadway: Scenes from a Jazz Life and bassist in the Mulligan quartet * Mulligan's brainy but playful artistry gets the attention it deserves in this valuable study by Alyn Shipton. His writing teems with clear, meticulous scholarship, musical understanding, and a desire to make his subject appealing and accessible to everyone from casual jazz lovers to musicians. With Shipton's book in hand, readers will set forth on a beautiful voyage of discovery. * James Gavin, award-winning music journalist and author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker * Highly recommended. * Lance Liddle, bebop spoken here * With forensic attention to detail Alyn Shipton reveals fresh and original material about a group that created a totally new ensemble sound. Famously pianoless the quartet was dominated by Gerry Mulligan's baritone saxophone not only as a soloist but also as an accompanying voice. In his Preface, the author makes it clear to being ""fascinated by Mulligan's playing, writing and band-leading"" since his schooldays. The research he undertook in 2002 for a four-part series on Mulligan's music for BBC Radio 3 allowed him to meet many ""musicians and associates from all periods of his career"". His ""comprehensive sweep through newspaper and magazine reports"" uncovers much that is new in the quartet's evolution. * Gordon Jack, The Jazz * Meticulously detailed but intensely readable analysis of the baritone sax giant's creative heyday. * Ben Thompson, Mojo magazine * The book places Gerry Mulligan's 1950s pianoless quartet in its historical and musical context by a detailed discussion of its recordings. * Gordon Jack, Jazz Profiles * This becomes the most useful book on Mulligan so far, and an appropriate celebration of his unique contribution. * Brian Priestley, Jazzwise * A worthwhile addition to the literature on Gerry Mulligan and a valuable aid to understanding a transformative period of modern jazz. * Ian Patterson, All About Jazz *"