Customer Reviews

Stan Getz Finest Hour

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This compliation covers the sax player's best work between 1955 and '71 in only ten selections totalling 60 minutes. As an introduction to Getz, or just as an enjoyable jazz disc, I don't see how it could have been better. Some Bossa Nova is here, of course, but we also get Stan with orchestra, and with pianists, and guitarists, and vibes players. Some of the "name" artists who contribute: Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, Connie Kay, Shelly Manne, Charlie Byrd, Joao Gilberto, Antonio Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Gary McFarland, Doc Severinsen, Hank Jones, Jim Hall, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Clarke and Chick Corea. The star, however, is always Getz. There is a nice balance here of tempo and mood and well-known v. obscure selections. If you like jazz sax in general, Stan in particular, don't miss this one.

Stan Getz without ANY doubt was the greatest saxophone player ever to walk the planet. NO one had that smooth and melodic tune. In fact, this album represent a good balance between very melodic romantic tunes, bossa nova (oh yes) and of course some wild swinging stuff. While I prefer the bossa nova and more mellow tunes, this album represent a good balance and place to begin for any recent or long time Stan Getz fan.

Aside from having one of the greatest records in music history on this sensational album (Girl from Ipanema), Getz's Finest Hour includes a healthy sampling of the great saxaphonist's work.

There are two types of jazz recordings: day and night. This album ("album" itself becoming a quaint term with CDs ruling the market place) includes a smattering of both, the day variety, which are conducive to sitting in your favorite mid-day lounge chair while sipping a cool drink; and the night fare, which are cuts that are best heard in a smokey jazz club in the middle of the night. As mentioned, Finest Hour includes mesmerizing examples of both.

For an admittedly limited sampling one cannot go wrong with Getz's Finest Hour, it serves as a nice introduction into a musical genius.

The is a collection of some of the best of Stan Getz. It is no wonder he was called "The Sound" in the jazz world. Just be careful; it's so beautiful that it's addictive.

Inexplicably, this single-disc Getz collection is currently trailing in sales another one, entitled "The Essential Stan Getz: The Getz Songbook." If you're looking for a disc that comes reasonably close to representing Getz the complete saxophone player, a musician nearly as dominant during his era as Coltrane was, this is the one. The other anthologies tend to dwell excessively on commercially successful tracks from Getz' "cool" period and "bossa nova" successes; this one demonstrates the man's mastery of the horn--not just his Prez-derived yet unique "sound," but his pyrotechnical command of melody, rhythm and articulation. After rediscovering Getz' incredible ten-chorus solo on "Shine" (from "West Coast Jazz"), that's become the first track I go to when demonstrating Getz' incredibly fertile imagination and equally dazzling technique. He employs numerous rhythmic patterns, an inexhaustible arsenal of articulations (from flutter tonguing to double and triple tonguing), all the while sounding utterly relaxed while constructing an ever-building solo at breakneck speed (somehow maintaining throughout the illusion of an ascending, spiraling hummingbird). Conte Candoli bravely follows him, and just as the trumpeter seems to be failing, Getz comes back in, playing a variation on a motif from his own solo as a means of bringing Conte back to life for the end of the trumpet solo. It's a tour de force, perhaps ranking among the several best improvised saxophone solos ever recorded, and the listener should be prepared to listen to it repeatedly before moving on to the next track.

Getz is underrated, even by his fans, whose frequent praise of, and fixation on, his "pretty tone" unwittingly adds fuel to the fire of those who dismiss him as a one-trick pony. Far from it--he was a gallant and formidable stallion if not an entire cavalcade of them. This collection even has one of the songs from Getz' most complex album, "Focus" (arrangements by Eddie Sauter), a work that stands alongside impressionist art such as the music of Debussy, Ravel and Satie. If you want the Getz recordings that made the juke box circuit and produced affected fans wearing shades and berets, maybe one of the other collections is a better bet. Nonetheless, this one is currently the best.

"The Sound", or "Stanley the Steamer" as Stan Getz was known, had a pleasing technique and perfect control of his sax. He was much more popular, that is, sold much more albums than his contemporaries with the possible exception of Miles Davis. He was so popular that many critics of the time, and jealous musicians, dismissed his works as too pop. But behind that apparent ease of play and beautiful, buttered, golden tone is perhaps the greatest sax player of all time, who focused his attention not on innovation or writing but expressive playing. John Coltrane once said, "We'd all play like Getz.. if we could". Beauty, sweetness, tinged with melancholy and sadness, perhaps looking back to better times.

Getz played like he was not playing an instrument but rather as if the sax was an direct extention of his soul. After the drugs, which dogged him much of his life, in his later years he would consciously relax every muscle in his body for a half hour or so and enter a super relaxed yet intensly focused meditative state before he played. So the music would come out smooth and sweet. Infinite control so hard it sounds effortless. And it relaxes us just to listen.

This is a Verve best of taken from some twenty years of albums I love "Early Autumn" a re-do of the song that catapulted a younger Getz to public attention age 20 with Woody Herman's Second Herd. "Symptomes" is the mysterious ballad cut of a otherwise spikey experimental big band album. "Desafinado" and "The Girl form Ipanema" are crossover hits that ignited the Bossa Nova period.

While this is a good introduction to Stan, a survey for the Jazz novice, they are bleeding chunks ripped from other albums, like all best ofs. I can only hope that the listener who hears this marvellous music for the first time will seek out the original albums and hear these pieces where they belong. Most everything by Miles Davis is in print, but everyday more and more spectacular Getz original albums disappear from the market as we descend further into the Musical Dark Ages.

Hear this and if you like it, buy the originals while you still can!

I give this only four stars because many of the original albums these are taken from are better!

This album just touch my heart! Pure poetry in an amazing collection of an incredible artist. Don't hesitate, you won't regret it.