Customer Reviews

Jazz 'Round Midnight: Bossa Nova

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

 

 

As always, Stan Getz' saxophone is the star attraction here, but this is a well-balanced collection. The essential Getz bossa favorites -- Desafinado, Corcovado and Girl from Ipanema -- shine as always, and the instrumentals (especially Menina Moca and O Morro...) are stunning, with Antonio Carlos Jobim's impeccable guitar on the latter.

Jazz Samba is considered the essential Getz/bossa nova album, and there is some overlap, but how can you say no to Byrd, Getz and Jobim! I prefer vocalists to instrumentalists, but Getz' sax is a voice of its own and always a perfect evening listen. If you already own a stack of Getz albums, this one might contain enough redundancy (Bahia appears on several albums and collections, for example) that you don't need it; for new fans it's a great choice.

There was only one Stan Getz. This disc is an excellent cross-section of the best stuff he produced during the bossa nova years. He has many bossa nova albums, but if you don't want to buy them all, then this single disk, jam-packed with music, should suffice. Be careful though: you may find yourself lying down and relaxing, your mind transported to a perfect beach in a secluded part of paradise, drink in hand, watching the graceful island girls as they samba across the sand, hips swaying, etc., etc..
I don't know if it was Getz, or Jobim, or Joao Gilberto who first got the idea to team up on this music, but they certainly knew what they were doing. This has to be the sexiest, steamiest, most languidly erotic music ever produced. The singing, and looks, of Astrid Gilberto only add fuel to the fire. It's been forty years or so since the bossa nova craze hit--let's face it--it was a fad--but the music is still potent, still provocative, still vital.
Other sax players tried to jump on the bossa bandwagon, but it was Stan, with his inimitable tone, his understated technique, who truly made it his own.

Bossa Nova does something to you. It's joyous, soulful, and so affecting you simply lose yourself in the music. I can put on this music, sleep to it, and awake happier than I had been the previous day.

Stan was the greatest sax player of all time. The Sound. Stanley the Steamer. Stanley, "we'd all play like that,... if we could" Getz. Perfect tone, perfect control. Effortless as if he were breathing each golden note.

For the sax, if you get a soft reed you get a soft breathy tone, but it squeakes if you blow hard. If you get a hard reed, you can play loud but you lose the breathy tone. Getz somehow had the breathy tone or could play loud with the same sax!Impossible!

This is a good sample a best of Bossa Nova, mostly taken from Getz/Gilberto, the second best selling Jazz record of all time after Kind of Blue. It has many but not all of the best cuts from Jazz Samba, Jazz Samba Encore and the lesser Bossa Nova Albums. Jobim, who penned many those tunes, styled Bossa Nova on Getz sound. He toned down the raucous, percussive Samba and added his introspective melancholy perspective, and wrote the music with Getz "West Coast Jazz", Cool Jazz in mind.

Getz inistially insisted on Astrud Gilberto, a shy housewife, untrained singer, with little voice, on "Getz/Gilberto" over the objections of her husband, the shy Joao Gilberto and A.C. Jobim. He like the fact that she sang "desafinado" or off-key! Getz had an affair with her, which ended The Gilberto marriage. All three principals, who continued to appear "together" on stage with three different bands, for a year or two.


But none of this conflict effects the music, which is melifluous, melodic, relaxing, romantic and a good intro to the albums from which it was taken. And it helps that is has a woman on the cover with the great legs and seamed stockings.

BTW, Getz is out in front on all these tunes because he has The Sound and he's much better than the other musicians!!


Buy this intro and then buy the originals!

Stan Getz plays a fine tenor. He pops up in virtually every bossa nova album that there is - you just cannot escape the guy. He is invasive, that is to say that, not content with playing his own solos he 'helps along' the other soloists, filling in gratuituously and very loudly while they are singing/playing. I have played in many groups and there is an unwritten code of etiquette that you don't just blow loudly when it's someone else's solo. He's overpowered Astrud Gilberto's beautiful voice on many records - just can't wait for the soloist to take a breath and he's in there honking. He's got four tracks in this CD which is why I only rated it a 3. The remainder is fine music played by unselfish musicians.

Dream