Gerry Mulligan is remembered as the composer of some of the most memorable lines of the modern jazz era. He was known as a bandleader whose penchant for the unconventional led to ensembles as distinguished as the “pianoless” quartet with Chet Baker and the Concert Jazz Band. But in the nine years since he died, much too young, from cancer, he has been little thought of as what he truly was: one of the great saxophonists in the history of music.

Mulligan (1927-1996) and Duke Ellington’s Harry Carney were the two most celebrated players of the unwieldy, lower-E-flat instrument known as the baritone saxophone. In Mulligan’s era there was actually a lot of competition; younger guys like Pepper Adams, Nick Brignola, Ronnie Cuber, and Gary Smulyan were inspired to play the baritone by Mulligan and were faster, fleeter, and bluesier players. But none of them had Mulligan’s distinct voice, his combination of lyricism and intensity.

The 1962 album “Jeru” isn’t regarded as one of Mulligan’s greatest albums, yet to me it is absolutely essential to his ouevre. It tells us something that this, of all unlikely projects, was the one that Mulligan chose to title with his own nickname. Without the two elements that, for many casual listeners, make Mulligan Mulligan – the unconventional ensemble and the original compositions – Mulligan is more Mulligan here than ever.

The instrumentation is absolutely the standard one that nearly every saxophonist of jazz used as his basic format – horn plus three rhythm. Tommy Flanagan plays piano, Ben Tucker bass, and Dave Bailey, drums. Mr. Bailey, doubling as producer, also brought in latin percussionist Alec Dorsey on congas. Of the seven tracks, two are by Mulligan’s friend, the pianist and broadcaster Dr. Billy Taylor, and only one, “Blue Boy,” is by Mulligan himself. Mulligan brings his awesome tone to the three jazz originals, as well as two show tunes (Cy Coleman’s very obscure “You’ve Come Home” from “Wildcat” and Cole Porter’s very famous “Get out of Town”) and two not-often-jazzed pieces (Kurt Weill’s “Here I’ll Stay” and Leonard Bernstein’s “Lonely Town”).

Here the emphasis is on Mulligan’s saxophone playing. His baritone timbre has never sounded so tangibly tangy, so vital, so full of life, so mellow yet resilient. Mulligan blows from track to track as if he hasn’t got a care in the world, as if relieved of the responsibility of being Gerry Mulligan. Mulligan’s playing here sounds less like Carney or any other bari player than it does like the great Lester Young, transposed an octave lower and translated through Mulligan’s own formidable soul.

One tune that “Jeru” the album does not have is Mulligan’s own classic com position, “Jeru,” which he introduced in the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool band in 1949. That melody was a tip of the hat to Young, as it was inspired by one of Lester’s classic licks. Young himself heard it in Bessie Smith’s record of “My Sweetie Went Away” and used it in “Sometimes I’m Happy.”

“Jeru” (the song) does, however, turn up in the recently released “The Classic Concert Live” (Concord CCD-227) with a lyric by Mulligan himself and a vocal by Mel Torme. This live treatment of “Jeru” by Torme and Mulligan with his big band is a delight, as is much of “The Classic Concert Live,” which also features George Shearing.

Torme was one of Mulligan’s most consistent boosters over the years. Yet his brilliance was best distilled in more intimate, small-room settings. In big venues like Carnegie, Torme often did a lot of crowd-pleasing shtick (the sort of thing he – wisely – almost never put on record). In releasing this 1982 live recording from Carnegie Hall, Concord seems to have been unable to resist the three big names, even though Shearing and Mulligan were essentially just guest stars in a Tormecentric event. But 10 years later, Torme and Mulligan did a whole evening of Ellington at JVC with a big band that was positively transcendental. I wish Concord had issued that instead.

I have no reservations, however, about the new reissue of one of Mulligan’s acknowledged masterpieces, his 1971 orchestral epic, “The Age of Steam.” This was at a time when Miles Davis and many of Mulligan’s other contemporaries were profitably exploring the connections between jazz and rock, soul and blues. Davis’s idea was to do it with high-tech electronic implements, and Mulligan too employs electric keyboards on several tracks.

His main idea, however, was to get back to basics with more traditional acoustic instruments and the standard big band format. Hence the title, “The Age of Steam,” and the cover photo, which shows the composer, bearded and in denim, looking like a backwoodsman. He’s shown standing in front of a vintage locomotive, and the best composition on the piece is Mulligan’s contribution to a long line of jazz trains, “K-4 Pacific.”

Mulligan suggests a train rhythm, which changes speeds as it chugs across the prairie, going in and out of swing time, waltz time, and stop time. Certain patterns are reminiscent of the kind used to detect Native American life, in a manner reminiscent of “Indian Song,” which he had played the year before with Dave Brubeck. Although trumpeter Sweets Edison and valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer are featured throughout, the main attraction for me is the reed section, particularly the veteran West Coaster Bud Shank and the future smooth jazz star Tom Scott, who shares soprano solos with Mulligan.

The new edition of “The Age of Steam” is lavishly packaged in a combination CD-DVD box that includes a good documentary on the great man’s life, as well as a video of him giving a master class. It’s a fitting graduation present for a student musician, especially since the distributor, Hal Leonard, is primarily a sheet-music publisher and the disc also includes the full orchestrations for all the music on the album. But believe me, even if you could assemble the best orchestra working today to play them, it wouldn’t be the same without the amazing horn of the composer.