Let's Get Small

Steve Martin

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 20, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 1977
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino Flashback
• ASIN: B0017CW5D0
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,351 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Martin's got the audience in the palm of his hand on this mid-'70s recording of a show at The Boarding House in San Francisco. The comedian and his crowd are on the same wavelength; everyone in the room seems to share a California post-hippie sense of absurdism. Occasionally punctuated by banjo playing, Martin's almost cocky performance somehow manages to ramble with a sense of purpose. He certainly doesn't have to worry about losing the crowd; every tossed-off remark and gesture is readily gobbled up. Some of Martin's material verges on the surreal, and not surprisingly, drug references abound. One subtext of the album is the tension between conventional show biz and the hipper brand of comedy that Martin saw himself as embodying. But the comic doesn't really play favorites: both alternative and mainstream culture are targets for his funny jabs. --Fred Cisterna

Product Description
Steve Martin, Let's Get Small

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Professional show business! Hey!", May 7, 2006

By	Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Let's Get Small (Audio CD)

Too many of the reviews here are not judging this album on its own merits, but on everything they know about Steve Martin following the appearance of this album in 1977. The fact is that this album was so successful that it catapulted Steve Martin into the national spotlight, but before this album he was virtually unknown. At a time when most comedians were basing more and more of their humor on their capacity to get progressively vulgar, Martin brought forth a brand of humor that depended less on profanity than conceptual humor. He could get obscene as well, but because most of his act was "clean," the few times he would get bawdy had far more impact than with other major comedians.

I remember reading once that before turning to comedy Martin was in college a philosophy student, especially the linguistic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Certainly Martin is more conceptual than any contemporary comedian (though Steven Wright has since developed a comparable conceptual approach, though his presentation is considerably different), delighting in toying with words, combining ideas that clash unexpectedly with one another. And although the humor was always completely planned, there was an almost stream of consciousness touch to his routine at times. It was almost he never ceased being a philosopher, almost engaging in a deconstruction of normal humor.

What I find amazing today is that this album, released in the hey day of the age of disco, seems as fresh today as it was when it first came out. Even if you've heard the stuff before, his changes of pace and shifts are perennially original and unexpected. He really was cutting edge, but pretty soon he made cutting edge popular. The album was such a success that he immediately began selling out arenas and coliseums and, of course, began his unprecedented run as guest host of SNL, where he pioneered a string of famous skits. The album was cutting edge, but it was also graced with an almost universal appeal.

Following this album he released an almost equally good one, A WILD AND CRAZY GUY. Unfortunately the next two were more formulaic and felt like efforts to cash in on his success. By then Martin's career as a stand up comedian was over. The other great stand up to emerge from the seventies, Robin Williams, has at gone back to stand up from time to time, but Martin has stuck with acting and writing. But his subsequent success in other fields shouldn't make us forget just how brilliant this debut album was.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Obsequious, Purple, Clairvoyant, June 7, 2000

By	"mlynagh" (West Coast - USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Let's Get Small (Audio CD)

Anyone who can use "Obsequious, Purple and Clairvoyant" in a sentence, and make you laugh at the same time, is a comical genius! This album makes you wish that you had a 'wayback machine' set to 1977. You would gladly pay your four dollar admission to the Boarding House, and spend the next hour or so laughing with/at Mr. Steve Martin.

Since much of the humor is in the delivery, you'll have to listen for yourself to appreciate this masterpiece of comedy! You won't be dissappointed!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of Steve Martin's standup, October 12, 2001

By	Algernon D'Ammassa (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Let's Get Small (Audio CD)

In interviews in the early eighties, Steve Martin claimed that he hated performing standup: he said it frightened him. But he sure showed audiences a good time. He once led an audience - several hundred of them - outside to a local fast food joint and tried to order fries for everybody; another story he tells had him leading an audience out for a walk into the nearby neighborhood where they found an empty swimming pool. He had them all get in and he swam across the top of them - years before that became a commonplace of rock concerts.

Here he is with his banjo (he is a wonderful, mostly self-taught banjo player), trying and failing to sing sad songs with banjo accompaniment. ("You just can't sing a sad song with a banjo.... 'Oh death...and grief....and sorrow...and murder....'") He talks mockingly of seventies pot culture, improvises, dreams, and rambles with an ease and mastery that surpasses all of his subsequent albums. Highly recommended!