Search - Stan Getz :: Stan Getz & Cool Sounds (Mlps)

Stan Getz Swings Before He Learned the Samba

beaumich | San Antonio, Texas United States | 03/09/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In 1962, I took my first paycheck ever into a record store looking for "West Side Story". There, on an end cap, was an album with a picture of the Jets on the cover--much more appealing than the all-red cover of the sound-track. The clerk said "If you like that, you've got to hear this!" and put a copy of "Stan Getz and the Cool Sounds" on the turntable (in those days, they didn't shrink-wrap music, and they'd play it before you bought it). That day, I bought my first two albums...Thus began a lifetime love of that moment in jazz between swing and be-bop personified by Oscar Peterson and (briefly) Stan Getz. Here, Getz swings with an incredibly mellow sound; and does it without being syrupy. Bob Brookmeyer joins in on several numbers and makes you wish he'd made more than two appearances with Getz. The rhythm section stays mostly in thebackground, but catch John Williams' piano solo on Roundup Time and the solid rhythm of the Frank Isola cuts. This is music for *listening*. If all you know of Getz is the latin stuff, you owe it to yourself to find out what he did for thirty years before he learned to samba. I'm so glad to see this out on CD. I'm waiting for the US remaster, but it's on my short list. That 40-year-old record is so muddy it's hardly worth copying, but it's still one of the half dozen that live on the "play me" shelf--right next to the Peterson "West Side Story"."