When Stan Getz visited Paris to witness the French Open tennis matches, he would hang out at the Blue Note nightclub to hear how the locals did it, being told their jazz scene was not up to snuff. In London, he would pick up the European band he heard in Paris for an engagement at Ronnie Scott's. Because of his stature, Getz was able to grab the very best musicians the continent could provide, in this case the brilliant Belgian guitarist René Thomas, organist Eddy Louiss from Martinique, and French classical and jazz drummer Bernard Lubat.
1951-1952 (2003). In response to shortsighted comments implying that Stan Getz and Zoot Sims sounded too much like each other and too similar to Lester Young, Ira Gitler liked to use the analogy of "…a friend calling you on the telephone. You know who it is immediately. It's the same thing when you hear a musician play." The secret, of course, is to listen so carefully and consistently that you feel as though you have become a friend of the artist. This sort of empathy is a vital ingredient in jazz - the empathy between composers, players, and listeners. Hearing Stan Getz recorded live in performance at Boston's Storyville club on October 28, 1951, spells it out marvelously. Backed by pianist Al Haig, guitarist Jimmy Raney, bassist Teddy Kotick, and drummer Tiny Kahn, Getz sounds as though he has arrived at a hard-won maturity…
This two-CD sampler is most highly recommended for listeners not familiar with Stan Getz's recordings of the 1950s and '60s. Starting with a version of "Stella by Starlight" that co-stars guitarist Jimmy Raney, this set matches Getz's cool tenor with such artists as trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Conte Candoli, trombonist J.J. Johnson, baritonist Gerry Mulligan, pianists Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Chick Corea, valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer and vibraphonist Gary Burton. Also included are his two main bossa nova hits "Desafinado" and "The Girl from Ipanema" along with a couple of tracks from Getz's highly-rated Focus album. It's a fine overview of the great tenor's middle years.
German two CD compilation packaged in a digipak with 20 page booklet.
One of the all-time great tenor saxophonists, Stan Getz was known as "The Sound" because he had one of the most beautiful tones ever heard. Getz, whose main early influence was Lester Young, grew to be a major influence himself, and to his credit he never stopped evolving…
That this rare album was originally released only in Europe testifies to the dominance of jazz-rock in 1971 and not to the staggering quantity of imagination that one hears on the session today. Still co-leading his legendary European unit (this was their last recording), Francy Boland unleashed his classical training to produce dazzling, fantastically complex writing often loaded with dissonances, unusual groupings of instruments, freeform freakouts, alternating sections in 5/4 and 4/4, loose-jointed structures, and firestorm endings. Yet Getz's great ear picks everything up intuitively; his solos, though brief in playing time, are loaded with sometimes strident emotion and occasionally flirt with the outside…
Before his death after a several year battle with cancer, Stan Getz continued to release a flurry of outstanding recordings. Cafe Montmartre is a compilation of several live performances at the famous Copenhagen club with pianist Kenny Barron, selected from three earlier CDs, the 1987 quartet dates Anniversary! and Serenity, plus the two-disc set People Time from 1991. Getz was a masterful ballad interpreter and delivers with the mournful tribute "I Remember Clifford" and an absolutely haunting, emotionally charged take of Billy Strayhorn's "Blood Count" (written as its composer lay dying of cancer). Barron makes a strong case as one of Getz's very best accompanists, while bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Ben Riley (present only on the 1987 material), are also superb…
Digitally remastered two-fer containing a pair of albums from the Jazz great on one CD: Interpretations By the Stan Getz Quintet and Interpretations By the Stan Getz Quintet #2. Both albums (which were 10-inch LPs) were given a 5-star rating in Down Beat magazine. Three additional tracks have also been included which complete all of the master takes recorded by this exact formation of the quintet, with Bob Brookmeyer, John Williams, Teddy Kotick, and Frank Isola.
This double-disc set features all of the studio performances between saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Jimmy Raney recorded between October of 1948 and April of 1953. The sheer number of labels the pair recorded for is staggering, from Sittin' in With to Roost, Savoy, Sesco, Clef, Prestige, and others. And while Getz, particularly on the early sides, is still deeply entrenched in his worship of Charlie Parker, the cool elegance of Raney's own playing is already asserting itself on the early sides, so that by 1951, Getz has moved toward the center from strictly bebop. Some of the other players on these sessions include Duke Jordan, Curly Russell, Blossom Dearie, Horace Silver, Roy Haynes, Frank Isola, and many others. There are 41 performances in all, giving a striking portrait of the era, and of Getz's development as a soloist and bandleader in particular…