Jazz

His compositions "Walking Shoes" and "Young Blood" stand out as embodiments of the contrapuntal style that became Mulligan's signature.

Mulligan's mother hired an African-American nanny named Lily Rose, who became especially fond of the youngest Mulligan. As he became older, Mulligan began spending time at Rose's house and was especially amused by Rose's player piano, which Mulligan later recalled as having rolls by numerous players, including Fats Waller. Black musicians sometimes came through town, and because many motels would not take them, they often had to stay at homes within the black community. The young Mulligan occasionally met such musicians staying at Rose's home.

Birth of the Cool
In September 1948, Miles Davis formed a nine-piece band that featured arrangements by Mulligan, Evans and John Lewis. The band initially consisted of Davis on trumpet, Mulligan on baritone saxophone, trombonist Mike Zwerin, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, Junior Collins on French horn, tubist Bill Barber, pianist John Lewis, bassist Al McKibbon and drummer Max Roach.
He was also (with Davis, Konitz and Barber) one of only four musicians who played on all the recordings. Despite the chilly reception by audiences of 1949, the Davis nonet has been judged by history as one of the most influential groups in jazz history, creating a sound that, despite its East Coast origins, became known as West Coast Jazz.

The pianoless quartet with Chet Baker
Baker's melodic style fit well with Mulligan's, leading them to create improvised contrapuntal textures free from the rigid confines of a piano-enforced chordal structure. While novel at the time in sound and style, this ethos of contrapuntal group improvisation hearkened back to the formative days of jazz. Despite their very different backgrounds – Mulligan, a classically trained New Yorker, and Baker, from Oklahoma and a much more instinctive player – they had an almost psychic rapport and Mulligan later remarked that, "I had never experienced anything like that before and not really since."

He [Clifford Brown] was also a composer of note: two of his compositions, "Joy Spring"[2] and "Daahoud",[3] have become jazz standards.[4]

Brown was influenced and encouraged by Fats Navarro,[7] sharing Navarro's virtuosic technique and brilliance of invention. His sound was warm and round, and notably consistent across the full range of the instrument. He could articulate every note, even at very fast tempos which seemed to present no difficulty to him; this served to enhance the impression of his speed of execution. His sense of harmony was highly developed, enabling him to deliver bold statements through complex harmonic progressions (chord changes), and embodying the linear, "algebraic" terms of bebop harmony. In addition to his up-tempo prowess, he could express himself deeply in a ballad performance.

Ernest Gold won Best Soundtrack Album and Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards of 1961 for the soundtrack and theme to Exodus respectively. It is the only instrumental song ever to receive that award to date.