Stan Getz: Focus (verve)

A year or two shy of his bossa nova success, Stan Getz set his mind to improvising against a backdrop of darkish yet scintillating string charts. The orchestral muscle was provided by arranger Eddie Sauter; the heady and fluid horn lines, of course, came from Getz. The jazz star might have been all airy samba fog to some, but on this classic date he really showed his expansive horn talents: whether leaping and yelping on such galvanizing sides as "I'm Late, I'm Late" or ingeniously responding to the many shades heard in a grand ballad like "I Remember When," Getz is never short on ideas or panache. Admittedly Getz's most challenging date and arguably his finest moment, Focus roams the vast jazz landscape outside of bop and boogaloo to fabulous and memorable effect.

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.

Stan Getz - Reflections (1963) {Verve 523 322-2 rel 2003}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 208 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 77 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 34 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24bit 96kHz remastering
© 1963, 2003 Verve / Universal | 523 322-2
Jazz / Cool / Saxophone

Though in 1963 some purists considered Reflections to be certain evidence that Stan Getz had sold out and abandoned "real jazz" completely, the album is actually, while perhaps not a masterpiece, an artful and intriguing sidebar to the tenor saxophonist's now celebrated bossa nova period. Getz was always a sublimely smooth and lyrical player who had already recorded in an orchestral setting on the groundbreaking Focus, and had a number one pop hit with Jazz Samba. It was only natural, then, that he would want to combine the two concepts.

Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz's neo-big band album Apasionado has been consigned to minor league status since its original release in 1990. It does, indeed, look unpromising: recorded in fall 1989, when Getz was undergoing treatment for the cancer which would kill him less than two years later; with a pair of synthesizers replicating a string section; and with the commercially astute but MOR focused Herb Alpert producing. But 20 years on and rereleased, Apasionado rises way above expectations. Getz is in soaring form, commanding attention so completely that the ersatz strings, and Alpert's slight arrangements, become irrelevant, barely emerging from the distant background where they belong. Apasionado, despite the received wisdom, is actually a very fine Getz album. The album's structure was modeled, in large part, on Getz's masterpiece Focus (Verve, 1961), on which the saxophonist improvised, with practically no rehearsal and without prewritten melodies, over a suite played by a string orchestra arranged by Eddie Sauter.

In November 1961, tenor sax titan Stan Getz was leading one of his best yet shortest-lived lineups, with pianist Steve Kuhn, bassist John Neves, and drummer Roy Haynes. The previously unreleased Getz at the Gate showcases this group at peak power on the bandstand. In sound quality, it far exceeds Live at Birdland 1961, which captures nearly the same band (with Jimmy Garrison on bass) on many of the same tunes, earlier in the same month.