Customer Reviews

Quartets

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I bought this as an LP while stationed in Japan in 1962. It took me about two months just to turn it over, because the songs on side one blew me away. I was so affected by Getz's playing that I bought a tenor saxophone and subjected the rest of the guys living in the barracks to my practicing. I shudder to remember doing that. I wasn't ever very good at it.

But Getz was good at it. His later stuff is very pretty, but this recording is not only pretty, it shows Getz at a time when he had a muscular edge to his playing. He was young and on fire. I have since heard other collections of his early things that come close, but as this is my first love, nothing else quite measures up. 'You Stepped Out Of A Dream' was my favorite on the album. In about 1982 I saw Stan at Keystone Korner in San Francisco. At a slow moment between tunes I called out that title and they played it for me. It was one of the high points of my life.

If you buy it, I believe you will thank me. But you might have to listen to it for two months first. Who knows? The other players on this are outstanding. The piano player is particularly fine, but I've forgotten his name and am too lazy to walk downstairs to read the CD case.

I'll admit to approaching the work of Stan Getz from the bossa nova recordings back. There was such a breathy ease in Getz' playing as he glided across those Brazilian rhythms. But, it was also as if this approach had sprung forth fully-formed because, frankly, I couldn't hear it in the few straightahead jazz recordings by Getz I had sampled from the 1950s. That is, until I reached these sides from 1949-50. They form a pair of bookends with the bossa nova records, a sort of alpha and omega of Getz' work. Listen to Getz play over the Latin beat of "Lady in Red" back in 1950, and the entire bossa nova approach is there. It's as if Getz stumbled early on what he did best... and wouldn't again scale the heights of popular acceptance until he came back to it. The Stan Getz Quartets have quickly become my favorite Getz, with particular props, as well, to Al Haig, who is astonishingly in sync with what Getz is doing and turns in great solo work here. Why didn't Haig become more famous? My only quibble with this CD is the sequencing. From what I can deduce, this CD replicates the track order of an earlier LP, which in turn was based on an earlier 10-inch record, with two tracks from a later date (no Al Haig) added to the end of each side (A and B) of the LP. Transferred to CD, this playing order simply makes no sense at all, as the tracks jump back and forth in time. For those not yet familiar with the original LP and coming to this music for the first time on CD (like me), I would suggest programming the tracks in something like their original session order. But, heard in whatever order, these sides (set down by Getz at a mere 23 years of age) are among his purest and most impressive recordings.

In this period of Stan Getz career, very late 40's and early 50's there must be some 20 CD's available with overlapping selections. So It's hard to recommend one over another. Many of the selections on this CD are also on the "Complete Roost Sessions", "Prezervation", etc. The Europeans do not recognize our copyrights and only extend original copyrights for 50 years. So as far as they are concerned, these performances are now in the public domain, the artist or the artist estate get no royalties, and anyone who feels like it can put out a copy.

So how is it? Wonderful. Stan with Al Haig mostly, who is, after maybe Kenny Barron, his greatest accompaning pianist. Haig and Getz could play complex bebop with the fastest of them, but had a cool and romantically lyrical side missing from their contemporaries. Listen to "Too Marvellous for Words" for an example of this.

If you don't have it on another CD (check recording dates to see) this is a good sampling from Stan's early, Cool(est) period.

Recording quality? what can you expect from 1950?

Antes de voltarmos a falar do jazz no Chile, precisamos apresentar aquilo que vamos denominar de `segunda fase' de Stan Getz. Já sabemos que, entre 1943 e 1949, Getz passou por um importante período de aprendizagem com alguns dos mestres do swing: aos 16 anos toca com Jack Teagarden. Em seguida, com Stan Kenton, Jimmy Dorsey e Benny Goodman. Finalmente, parte para a banda de Woody Herman, com a qual produz duas importantes gravações: Four Brothers e Early Autumn. Considerado por muitos como um ótimo imitador de Lester Young, Getz percebe que, nesse dúbio elogio, encontrava-se também uma espécie de crítica mordaz em relação à sua capacidade inventiva e à sua personalidade própria. Disposto a mostrar que era capaz de vencer limitações e construir um estilo próprio, dotado de uma sonoridade personalíssima, parte em direção a um projeto que, mais tarde, lhe valeria a alcunha de The Sound, por ter estabelecido o som mais bonito que muitos já puderam ouvir de um sax tenor. A segunda fase de Getz, então, constitui-se do estudo, domínio e manuseio do bebop, o mais novo idioma negro produzido na costa leste.
A linguagem complexa desse novo estilo estava sendo definida por gente como Dizzy Gillespie e Charlie Parker, entre outros, como Kenny Clarke e Thelonious Monk, dois estilistas autônomos do movimento. O requisito básico da aventura bop era o virtuosismo, coisa que Getz detinha e outros não, como, por exemplo, Miles Davis. Depois de levar surras homéricas de Gillespie e Parker, Miles afundou-se na heroína e inventou o tal de jazz modal, um sistema onde até mesmo uma velhinha desdentada de 90 anos é capaz de improvisar horas a fio. Getz, ao contrário, encarou o desafio com os peso-pesados do bop, destilando frases complexas e velozes através de uma sonoridade etérea, sedutora e ímpar, imediatamente reconhecível. Em termos de gravações, podemos dizer que essa `segunda fase' de Getz vai de 1949 - quando grava o excelente Stan Getz Quartets - até 1956, quando grava o emblemático álbum For Musicians Only, com Sonny Stitt (as), Dizzy Gillespie (t), Herb Ellis (g), John Lewis (p) e Ray Brown (b).