Broadway
* (Billy Bird, Sir Henry Joseph Wood, Teddy McRae) [6.05]
A Ghost of a Chance
* (Bing Crosby, Ned Washington, Victor Young) [4.44]
All God’s Children Got Rhythm
&* (Bronislaw Kaper, Gus Kahn, Walter Jurmann) [4.13]
East of the Sun
(Brooks Bowman) * [5.03]
Topsy
** (Eddie Durham, Edgar Battle) [7.13]
’Round Midnight
** (Thelonius Monk) [5.41]
Dear Old Stockholm ***
(Traditional) [6.15]
Lady Bird
*** (Tadd Dameron) [6.04]
Cherokee ***
(Ray Noble) [5.56]
Bonus Tracks:
Spring Can Really Rang You up the Most
+ (Fran Landesman, Tommy Wolf) [4.28]
Get Happy
+ (Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler) [6.42]
Without a Song
+ (Billy Rose, Edward Eliscu, Vincent Youmans [5.42]
Fontessa ++
(John Lewis) [5.08]
Stan Getz (Tenor Saxophone) with –
* Martial Solal (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums)
** same as above plus Jimmy Gourley (guitar)
*** René Urtreger (piano), Jimmy Gourley (guitar), Jean-Marie Ingrand (bass), Pierre Michelot (bass on Cherokee), Kenny Clarke (drums)
All above recorded in Paris in June-July 1958 and April 1959.
- Bonus tracks + with Bengt Halberg (piano), Gunnar Johnson (bass), William Schiopffe (drums) rec in Frederiksberg Denmark on October 1st 1960
Bonus Track ++ with Hans Hammschmid (piano), Doug Watkins (bass), and Art Taylor (drums) rec. in Baden-Baden, Germany July 29 1958. [73.19]
What a virtuoso and expressive jazz player was Stan Getz. He made these recordings in Paris in quartet and quintet formats during his 1958 European tour.
Starting his career with Jack Teagarden’s band, he played along with Nat King Cole and Lionel Hampton and played for Stan Kenton, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny
Goodman and Woody Herman where, from 1947 to 1949, he gained great popularity as one of the band’s saxophonists known collectively as ‘The Second Herd’
After 1950 he would be the leader on almost all of his recording sessions. In the early 1950s he was playing cool jazz with Horace Silver, Johnny Smith and
Oscar Peterson and many others. Other famous names he performed with included: Dizzy Gillespie, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Max Roach.
In the mid-1950s Getz escaped his addiction to drugs by going to Europe spending much time in Scandinavia where he recorded many times. This European scene
stretched Getz and allowing him to develop his style explore new ideas. Getz wasn’t the first jazz musician to reap the benefits of a more relaxed
lifestyle and lower cost of living in Europe. Sidney Bechet had led the way, settling in France, followed by Kenny Clarke (heard on this album) Bud Powell
and Lucky Thomson and Bill Coleman etc.
This album offers expressive performances, with plenty of interesting and ear-arresting extemporisations from Getz and his ensembles, of some best loved
melodies. These include: a hearty rendering of East of the Sun, a joyous All God’s Children Got Rhythm an elaborate fA Ghost of a Chance but with tenderness and yearning if spiced with a few eyebrow lifting bass notes and a swinging Topsy. The Title song Round Midnight returns to a romantic introspective mood. Dear Old Stockholm became one of Getz’s favourite songs and his treatment here
demonstrates this fondness with some affectionate elaborations. The well-known well-loved jazz number, Cherokee receives an exuberant performance
full of joie de vivre.
The four bonus tracks were recorded in Denmark and Germany (the final track). The down-beat blues of Spring Can Really Hang You Up is followed by
happier material that is the chirpy Get Happy. This is followed by another romantic ballad with Stan Getz’s soulful Without a Song with
Bengt Hallberg’s plaintive and sensitive by piano accompaniment. Finally comes John Lewis’s tender tribute to Fontessa.
For Stan Getz fans this album represents some of his best.
Ian Lace
CD Reviews
AMERICAN JAZZ CLASSICS
