But Beautiful (Featuring Stan Getz)

Bill Evans, Stan Getz | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 19, 1996)
• Original Release Date: 1974
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Milestone
• ASIN: B000000XV6
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,088 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

GETZ STAN / EVANS BILL BUT BEAUTIFUL

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It doesn't "Getz" any better than this., March 3, 2000

By 

Richard F. Monk (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: But Beautiful (Featuring Stan Getz) (Audio CD)

This collaboration between Stan Getz and Bill Evans is in the "top five jazz CD's" of my collection of 175+ discs. Why? One of the most compelling reasons is the incredible Getz tenor sax solo on "The Peacocks", written by pianist Jimmy Rowles. Getz puts more emotion in to that passionate, melancholy, sad yet beautiful sax solo, than on any other recording of his I have heard. When I hear Getz's tenor sax flutter, I can easily picture a strutting peacock, proud yet lonely, beautiful yet incomplete. This song is terrifyingly emotional. I would compare this recording of "The Peacocks" with any John Coltrane recording, for intensity of feeling and sheer beauty. "You and the Night and the Music" really swings, and Getz soloing is almost as good as on "The Peacocks". Evans doesn't take a back seat to Getz anywhere. Evan's compositions are featured, including a spirited version of "Funkallero", perhaps the fastest paced cut on the CD. It sounds like Getz and Evans are having a great time, including Getz wishing Evans "Happy Birthday" with the crowd applauding enthusiastically. The sound is first rate, recorded at a live concert in Europe. Evans always seemed to me to do his best performing in front of a live audience (like those on "Sunday at the Village Vanguard", and Waltz for Debbie"). If I had to pick the kind of jazz "band" I most like to listen to, it would be piano, bass, drums, and tenor sax. If I had to pick the best example of that grouping, it would be the musicians here, and the CD "But Beautiful". This CD is my favorite Bill Evans recording (I enjoy it more than the two Evans albums previously mentioned), and also my favorite Stan Getz recording. I think the joyous sounds they produce here are thoroughly enjoyed by the live audience. I am thrilled to be part of that audience when I listen to this recording, which is frequently.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars He's human (thank God!) [But hold on--], July 13, 2003

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: But Beautiful (Featuring Stan Getz) (Audio CD)

[After writing the review below, I've had a chance to listen to the CD several more times. It's not Bill but Stan who messes up on "But Beautiful". Twice he plays the last 16 bars of the tune when he should be playing the first 16. Either he was shaky on the melody or unnerved by Bill's stonewalling him on the preceding blues. In any case, the 40 minutes worth of music that follows the title tune is definitely 5 stars.]

This is the second and most successful of the recorded musical meetings between two giants. The first was a 1964 studio session that, for various reasons, didn't click; "But Beautiful," on the other hand, is a 1974 European concert recording kept in the vaults until 1995. It's a strong outing by Getz (don't be thrown by previous reviews) but a rather tentative, uneven offering on Bill's part.

There's some extra-musical drama unfolding during the concert. Bill was miffed when Stan, despite earlier assurances, launched into an unannounced, unrehearsed blues, "Stan's Blues," for the second number of the set. As a result, he sat impassively at the piano, refusing to play and even forbidding Eddie Gomez to take a bass solo. Under the circumstances, Getz carries on practically heroically, taking the tune entirely upon his own shoulders and submitting a series of inventive, grooving choruses in F. The next tune is "But Beautiful," and Bill does something I've never heard him do on record: he loses track of the chord progression for the last eight bars of the song during Getz' solo!

After this halting beginning, the foursome settles down, with Bill's trio turning in an uncharacteristically swinging, straightahead set behind the irrepressible Stan, especially on a driving "Funkallero." Then immediately following "The Peacocks" Stan more than makes amends to Bill, offering him a big bouquet of musical roses in the form of an unaccompanied "Happy Birthday" (it was the day of Bill's 44th).

If you're new to Stan, this set certainly offers far more of his tenor mastery than the Verve samba recordings. There's also some good Evans, though the playing by Bill or for that matter his trio is frequently more suggestive of his bop-oriented musical approach before 1959. And contrary to a previous reviewer's recommendations, the best Evans is not on Verve (Bill himself faulted the sound engineering of Rudy Van Gelder). Go to the early Riversides ("Sunday at the Village Vanguard") and the late Fantasies ("The Paris Concert").

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars stan and bill's best work together, May 31, 2000

By 

rash67 (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: But Beautiful (Featuring Stan Getz) (Audio CD)

Bill Evans preferred to play with a trio, usually with the string bass acting like a lead instrument, but he did a few spectacular recordings with larger ensembles like this and , of course, Miles Davis, especially "Kind of Blue". The ego-trips and the racism he encountered there turned him off to larger groups (see "Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings"). This is a tantalizing example of what he would have sounded like in a group where he was on equal footing with a sax. It's a shame he didn't play more in a larger band!

The CD starts with an early minor musical disagreement, Stan launches into an unplanned "Stan's Blues", Bill shakes his head and the rest of the group just stops and leaves Stan playing mostly alone. But the rest is happier, Stan plays "Happy Birthday" for Bill and they make up and the two most sensitive and warmest leaders of the "Cool School" put together a great concert.

Standout songs are the title track "But Beautiful", "Emily" and "Lover Man".

There is another less fortunate Stan Getz/Bill Evans encounter on Verve. The less said about that one, the better.

This is the CD to have! 3 & 1/2 to 4 stars.