I found a guy in the Bronx who had an old plywood Kay bass that he wanted $75 for. He held it for me, and I gave him a few dollars every time I could scrape some extra money together.
Zoot sparked that [Gerry Mulligan’s] sextet in an extraordinary way, soloing with joyous abandon and infusing the ensemble parts with his special brand of swing.
He had a beautiful touch, knew all the best ways around the chord changes, and swung mightily. And he brought an air of cheerful competence to every date, making us all feel that it would be possible to make some very good music that day.
My reading was good enough to play big-band charts, but I ran into trouble with Claude (Thornhill)’s theme song “Snowfall,” which had a repeating bass line in D-flat that was very difficult for me to finger using my self-taught technique.
![Bill Crow Quote - Zoot sparked that [Gerry Mulligan’s] sextet in an extraordinary way, soloing with joyous abandon and infusing the ensemble parts with his special brand of swing.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/zoot-sparked-that-gerry-mulligans-sextet-in-an-ext.jpg)
