Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfection, November 7, 2001
How do you critique the album that started an era? Forty years later, Jazz Samba is still one of the most relaxing, rhythmically pleasing albums made. All instrumental, with the tenor sax of Stan Getz (the guy John Coltrane professed to admire!) and inspired guitar of Charlie Byrd. The entire album was recorded in one session in the performance hall of a Washington, D.C., church, and it puts legions of studio albums to shame.While Desafinado and Bahia are the best known tracks, the album is a seamless experience and it is difficult to single out certain songs as superior. If Getz is one of the masters of the tenor saxophone, it is also hard to separate his proficiency from the effort as a whole -- it truly comes across as a tight ensemble effort. (For a contrast, Duke Ellington's masterful and equally essential Money Jungle released the same year finds the trio of Ellington, Mingus and Max Roach locked in a musical duel on a couple of tracks.) Favorites? I enjoy Samba de Uma Nota So, but every time I reach for Jazz Samba I alway listen to the entire album. At least once. This and Getz/Gilberto belong in every jazz collection.
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51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The soundtrack to my dreams., July 11, 2001
the perfect introduction to U.S.-filtered bossa nova. I say 'U.S.' because the sound Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz bring to these classics are considerably smoother and broader than originals which can be often raspy or intensely private, but always richly nuanced. Getz's playing is masterfully self-effacing, never virtuosic for its own sake: you might forget he's even there as he conducts intimate conversations with Byrd's often Reinhardt-like guitar, or the quietly insistent rhythms, and yet he is the soul of this beach music that sounds so sad.The best tracks are the old Jobim favourites 'Desafinado' and 'One note samba', in which the familiar melodies are taken through the most intricate, yet never alienating, variations, always obeying that hypnotic bossa nova beat. 'E Luxo Se' is a wide-eyed beauty, beaming the kind of melody that makes you instantly happy no matter how miserable you felt before you heard it. The same could be said for the whole of this marvellous album, perhaps best listened to at night when you're feeling weary, ready to dream...
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stan and Charlie record first Bossa Nova hit., July 15, 1998
"Great companion to "Getz/Gilberto". Pure Samba without singers.
Charlie Byrd went to Brazil and heard the then unknown Antonio Carlos Jobim. He played Jobim records for Stan Getz, they got Keter Betts and two drummers went to All Soul's Unitarian Church in DC, and created the first Bossa Nova, Samba record in the US - a monster hit with "Desafinado". It changed America, and Jazz forever. For a decade every Jazz player tried to imitate it. The best selling Jazz CD of the decade, that's how good it is. A number one Hit of the Billboard Jazz, Pop and Rock charts at the same time. No other Jazz album, not other album of any type, not even "Kind of Blue", even "Getz /Gilberto", has ever achieved that.
Listen to subtle polyrhythym drumming from Deppenschmidt & Riechenbach which add an authentic Carnivale touch. There is more traditional Samba polyrhythm on this CD than any of the subsequent Getz Bossa Nova CD's and most BN cd's by subsequent artists who tried to capitalize om the BN craze. Hear this on "E Luxo So".
Stan floats and soars in "Desafinado" (Portuguese for "offkey"), "E Luxo So" and "Bahia". Most authentic Brazilian Getz Samba recording.
Hear Stan make each note 3-Dimensional blue fog note count."
Beautiful!, Lyrical!! Soaring!!! One of the ten best Jazz recordings ever made."
from my 1998 review
2006 update
Yes it's true, as wonderful a sax man as Getz was, and I think he was the best, he was cheap. He got all the credit and most of the money for this album and he and Byrd fought over the rights to it for a decade in the courts.
Nevertheless its' wonderful. - maybe that's why they fought
This CD is a perennial favorite that never grows old.
Jobim had admired Getz Cool, melancholy Sound for a decade and had actually modeled his new toned down, slowed down Samba sound, called "Bossa Nova", on the Getz sound before they even met!
For people who like Bossa Nova but don't like Astrud Gilberto's singing on "Getz/Gilberto", this is the ideal album.
see my list of Best Cool albums and Best Getz.
Highest recommendation! I hope that when I eventually die, (no time soon) at my funeral someone will play the soaring, always happy "E Luxo So" to send me on my way!
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~ Antonio Carlos Jobim
~ Stan Getz
~ Oscar Peterson
~ Paul Desmond
~ Astrud Gilberto
by Stan Getz 
