The North Sea Jazz Festival is the largest indoor music festival in the world, known globally as the event where the past, present and future of jazz are featured within three days. Next to a firm base of jazz as the festival's staple music genre, many others, such as blues, soul, funk, or hip hop, pass by. In 1982, American saxophonist Gerry Mulligan gave an unforgettable performance at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague. Mulligan was one of the leading arrangers of the cool jazz era, who worked with Miles Davis, Stan Kenton and Claude Thornhill in the 1950s and 1960s. Mulligan's early pianoless 1950s quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker is still regarded as one of the finest groups in cool jazz. Born in New York in 1927, Mulligan spent his life composing, arranging and playing jazz until his death on January 20, 1996.