Customer Reviews

But Beautiful (Featuring Stan Getz)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

[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").

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.

This CD is a perfect example of two great Jazz improvisers at their best. Both artists are thoughtful, lyrical, brooding, moving, and they can swing! One wishes they could have recorded more together, they obviously enjoyed each others musical company! The song selections cover everything from Ballads (But beautful and Emily), to Stan's Blues. At one point, Stan surprises Bill with a surprise Happy Birthday version of "The Peacocks". This is an outstanding album, and is a great example of Jazz at its musical best! One wishes another excellent album: Bill Evans and Jeremy Steig (Flute) would be released on CD.

Stan Getz and Bill Evans got into the recording studio together one time before, and the outcome wasn't what anyone had hoped for. The two had no chemistry, the tempi were too fast, and the type of beauty that you might expect from the pairing of two of the most melodic players that jazz ever produced just wasn't there.

This album was actually recorded by radio stations in Europe during a concert tour during which Getz agreed to join Evans' usual trio as a "special guest" and the outcome was completely different.

This album is everything that the first one wasn't. Stan's tone is it's most luminous, he and Bill listened to each other and played great together! Highlights include the title track, "The Peacocks", "Emily" and many others. There isn't a bad song on the album, and most of it is everything that you might expect of a pairing of the two.

My only beef with this album is the way that it was recorded. It is way too bass-y, and I have to fiddle with the tone controls every time that I play it. The music is so good that I can overlook the techincal problems, and you should too.

I've listened to this recording thousands of times over the years and never tire of hearing it. Like any great work of art it has the ability to engage every time it is encountered. This is the most perfect record I know of in any genre. My only regret is that I was not present at the perfomances. Charming, delightful, appealing, engaging, winsome; ravishing, gorgeous, stunning, arresting, glamorous, bewitching, beguiling; graceful, elegant, exquisite; sexy.

This is the penultimate album to have! (you will forever be looking for your ultimate jazz album, because any album you will declare as the ultimate will be bested by another one arriving seemingly out of nowhere!)
anyways the sound I'm looking for is here, I feel like I'm back in the 50s when I hear this album, dining in a very high-class restaurant and the music that plays on inside, leads to soulsearching most intense..

First of all, excuse my horrible and tasteless puns. Do yourself a favor, and don't sink to a lower level by purchasing this album. As both a jazz listener and performer, Getz and Bill Evans are my two favorite jazz artists. This album remains the biggest disappointment out of my entire Getz collection of 20+ CDs; the same goes for my Bill Evans collection. I really don't know what the other reviewers are thinking here. Getz's solos on the disc are clearly uninspired and don't even come close to revealing his uncanny mastery. Obviously, Evans and Getz still play well--but not nearly at the level they do on a host of other albums. Pick up "Getz and JJ at the Opera House", or Bill Evans' double-self-overdubbed "Conversations With Myself". Both are on the impeccable Verve label, and are a far better way to spend your money.

....should play this over their loudspeakers at least once a day. The residents would soon be mellower, more agreeable, happier, more enthusiastic, more "centered". I'm guessing the medication dosages could even be reduced.

This prescription will work for you, too!

This is some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. I disagree strongly with knowledgeable reviewer/Getz fan/punner extraordinaire Le Kang. I own many Getz and many Evans CD's, and this collaboration is magnificent, right up there with Stan's best stuff. Each cut features at least one astonishingly moving, sublime solo by the man known as "The Sound".

This is subtle, restful, tranquil, sexy music played by two masters. It's one of my all-time favorites.

In the liner notes of this release, the critic notes that both Evans and Getz had been disappointed in their '64 studio collaboration Stan Getz & Bill Evans. As a result, that album was shelved and then finally released in '74. The general tone of the liner notes is that on these live recordings, Evans and Getz finally achieved the chemistry that was lacking before (interesting, since Evans becomes disgusted and completely drops out of the second track, Stan's Blues). Nonetheless, the Grandfather's Waltz on this album is nicely stretched out compared with the original.

What really puts me on the side of the '64 album is the long stretch of ballads that starts from But Beautiful and ends with Loverman. Elvin Jones's performance on the '64 album really lights a fire under their asses, and you end up with a much punchier set of recordings.