Stan Getz

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Stanley Gayetzki, better known as Stan Getz (Philadelphia, February 2, 1927-Malibu, California, June 6, 1991), was a tenor saxophonist. American jazz.

Considered as one of the most important tenor saxophonists in the history of jazz, he was known by the nickname The Sound ("The Sound") due to his warm tone and lyrical, noticeable in songs like his version of The Girl from Ipanema. Getz's first influence was the light, soft tone of Lester Young.

Biography

Born in Philadelphia, when he was four years old his family moved to New York, where he lived in the Bronx neighborhood. Street fights and the attitude of others towards his Jewish origin caused him to develop a strong personality, proud and defiant.

He began studying double bass and bassoon before deciding on the sax at the age of thirteen, when his father bought him one. At fifteen he made his professional debut with the Dick & # 34; Stinky & # 34; Rogers and until 1946 he played successively in nine big bands, some like Benny Goodman's, with which he recorded his first solos. At nineteen he traveled to Los Angeles where he listened to Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, and became enthusiastic about those two great tenor saxophones who combined the teachings of Lester Young and Charlie Parker in their styles. In 1947 he started working in an orchestra directed by Tony de Carlo, with which he played mambos at Pontrelli's club. This formation was somewhat atypical since four soloists played in it, all with tenor sax. These adopted an airy style, a sound covered in a felt very "à la Lester" that soon earned them the nickname "The Brothers" . Woody Herman, who was looking for personality for his new orchestra, was conquered by the sound and hired them all together except Jimmy Giuffre.

In December 1948 he recorded his historic solo album on Early Autumn. Overnight, his name became much better known and he earned the nickname “The Sound.” In 1949 he left Woody Herman's orchestra, and began leading combos with Horace Silver, Al Haig, both pianists, Roy Haynes and Tiny Kahn, drummers, and guitarist Jimmy Raney. From 1952 he began his collaboration with producer Norman Granz.

In the '50s, Getz became quite famous playing cool with a young Horace Silver, Oscar Peterson, and many others. The first two Getz quintets were especially famous for their musicians, which included Charlie Parker's rhythm section with drummer Roy Haynes, pianist Al Haig and bassist Tommy Potter. In 1955 his album West Coast Jazz was released, which had a great impact as a paradigm of the homonymous style. Later, in 1958, Getz attempted to escape his drug addiction (for which he had been arrested four years earlier) by moving to Copenhagen, Denmark.

In 1961 he returned to the United States where he discovered that the American public had forgotten him, largely due to John Coltrane. To "counterattack" He recorded the landmark album He Focus. Getz became very fond of Brazilian bossa nova music, for its cadence and relaxed and romantic rhythm, so the album that made him popular again was Jazz Samba, his first album of & #34;bossa-nova" recorded with guitarist Charlie Byrd in 1962. The song titled "Jazz Samba" was an adaptation of Jobim's composition 'So Danco Samba'. Getz won the Grammy for best jazz performance in 1963 for the song "Desafinado".

The next step of this harmonious fusion was the meeting with Brazilian musicians. Getz recorded with composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, guitarist João Gilberto and his wife, singer Astrud Gilberto. His collaboration on "Garota de Ipanema" (The Girl from Ipanema) (1963) won the Grammy, making Jobim's style, known as bossa-nova, famous and popular. This piece became one of the most well-known and covered jazz songs in the history of music.

The album Getz/Gilberto won two Grammy Awards in 1965, for best album and best single, beating The Beatles with their song 'A Hard Day's' Night". This was undoubtedly a huge victory for jazz and bossa-nova and led to the spread of this music among millions of people around the world, paving the way for Brazilian music and its instruments to join jazz.

Stan Getz perfectly understood the language of bossa-nova and sounded completely natural in the recordings he made with Brazilian musicians. Brazilian jazz has survived and has clearly influenced the works of famous jazz musicians such as Wes Montgomery and Joe Henderson. In 1967 and later years, Getz became more interested in jazz-rock fusion and other post-bop trends, making increasingly personal music, and recording albums with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Gary Burton.

**Stan Getz and Chet Baker. Sandvika. 1983.**

Throughout the 80s he collaborated with pianists such as Jim McNeely or Kenny Barron, double bassists such as Jiri Mraz or Rufus Reid and drummer Victor Lewis. On several occasions when he visited Mexico in the 60s and 70s he liked to go to Acapulco and play with local musicians like the chalale cuijè etc...especially with Macario Luviano Ruíz whom Stan Getz had great admiration for his way of playing the piano and saxophone.

In 1988 he interrupted his European performances when he was diagnosed with liver cancer. But he continued playing until practically his last day, June 6, 1991. He was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. In 1998, the "Stan Getz Library and Multimedia Center"' Located at the Berklee Musical Conservatory, it was dedicated to the saxophonist's memory thanks to a donation from the Herb Alpert Foundation.

Quotes

"My life is music. And of some vague, mysterious and subconscious form, I have always been driven by an intense internal impulse that has led me to, almost compulsively, seek perfection in music, sometimes - it is more, almost always- at the expense of everything else in my life." - Stan Getz.
"An impeccable technique, perfect compass, a strong sense of melody and a more than enough technique with harmonics, fabulous memory and a great ear. Add an excellent sense of dynamic, tempo, and structure. Cover it with a pure gold sound and you will have Stan Getz." - The pianist Lou Levy.
"Let's admit it. We all [the saxophones] would like to play as he does, if we could." - John Coltrane.

Stan Getz

Biography

Quotes

Partial discography