Five Brothers is an instrumental jazz standard composed by Gerry Mulligan, who is its sole credited writer. The song has no lyrics and is played entirely by instrumentalists. It is associated with the cool, or West Coast, jazz style. The original recording was made by Stan Getz on 8 April 1949 and first released in 1951 on the album Stan Getz, Volume One.
Early versions followed in the 1950s, among them those by Claude Thornhill and His Orchestra (1953) and the Herbie Harper Quintet (1954). Gerry Mulligan's own quartet recorded the tune in 1955, and Stan Getz and Zoot Sims recorded it together in 1956. Taken together, these recordings show the tune circulating among jazz players within a few years of its first release.
