Stan Getz
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Overview
Stan Getz's life in jazz was amazingly long and prodigiously prolific: Over the course of forty-nine years as a professional, he performed in every major jazz idiom - from Dixieland to swing to bebop to free jazz. Though he is most famous for "The Girl From Ipanema," Stan Getz was already by then firmly ensconced in the pantheon of jazz greats. As a teenager just off the mean streets of the Bronx, Getz received the equivalent of a Ph.D. in jazz when he performed with the big bands of Jack Teagarden, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Woody Herman. Stan Getz contains rich portraits of these seminal bandleaders, as well as other jazz giants who influenced Getz's art: Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and his fellow bop pioneers, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman. Getz's recording of "Early Autumn" with the Woody Herman band catapulted him to stardom at age twenty-two in 1949. During the next forty-two years, Getz produced an astounding body of beautiful music, recording over three hundred records, including the great big band work, culminating with "Apasianado" in 1990; the 1961 jazz/classical masterpiece "Focus"; the wildly popular partnerships with Jobim, the Gilbertos, and Charlie Byrd, which brought Brazilian bossa nova to a world audience; the brilliant collaborations with Jimmy Raney, Bob Brookmeyer, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Jimmy Rowles, and Albert Dailey; and the magnificent, poignant quartet and duet recordings with Kenny Barron during his last years. Getz's legendary career is all the more impressive given the excesses of his personal life: He was a heroin addict until age twenty-seven, then a violent alcoholic until he achieved sobriety five years before his death. His addictions severely marred his relationships with his family and friends, brought him into trouble with the law, led to two suicide attempts, and constantly threatened to obliterate his livelihood and his artistry. Yet, despite being so furiously self-destructive that few bet heStan Getz's 19-year career encompassed the tumultuous eras of big band swing, be-bop, and free jazz. He was a featured saxophonist in the Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Woody Herman big bands, and he led his own distinguished combos through the be-bop period and beyond. This definitive biography provides a comprehensive account of the life of this jazz legend. 25 photos.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Maggin (Bankers, Builders, Knaves, and Thieves) chronicles the life and career of the great jazz saxophonist Getz (1927-1991), who was known especially for his sensuous tone and brilliant improvisations. Getz put his prodigious musical gifts to work early, joining Jack Teagarden's band at age 16 and moving on to Stan Kenton's group the following year. From then on, his musical fortunes never ceased to flourish. Nevertheless, his personal life was a disaster. Drugs. alcohol, depression, episodes of violence, a suicide attempt and lengthy divorce proceedings against his second wife provide a painful backdrop to the story of a consistently triumphant professional career. Maggin discusses Getz's performances and recordings (often delving into the backgrounds of many of the musicians with whom he worked) and analyzes his style and technique. While he presents the painful details of Getz's personal life, Maggin doesn't make much of an attempt to explain how Getz could have functioned so well on one level and failed so miserably on another.>Ages*** RISBN 1565540298 >This is something quite new in assassination literature: a book by a husband-and-wife team who are basically TV documentary makers-and in fact aired some of their discoveries in segments on network TV-but who write with vigor, persuasiveness and (almost unique in assassination literature) some humor. If only their discoveries had been up to their presentation, this would have been a significant contribution. As it is, despite the catchpenny title (a TV legacy), the book does not offer any very startling disclosures. There are three advances the authors made by painstaking research, however: they found a man who had been jailed in a cell next to Oswald-and whose incarceration in Dallas that day the FBI had hidden for more than 30 years. The man claims that Oswald knew a jailed gunrunner, as well as Jack Ruby. They discovered that Oswald carried a Defense Department card after his release from the Marines that gave him all sorts of privileges only an active agent would normally receive. And they determined that the famous 'tramps' arrested on Dealey Plaza that day really were tramps, and their arrest had indeed been recorded. Beyond that, the LaFontaines have much interesting information about the bootleg gun trade in Dallas in 1963, and about the anti-Castro underground, which they are convinced was closely involved in the assassination. This is an entertaining book, by smart people with open minds, but it doesn't take us a whole lot further.Publishers Weekly -
Maggin (Bankers, Builders, Knaves, and Thieves) chronicles the life and career of the great jazz saxophonist Getz (1927-1991), who was known especially for his sensuous tone and brilliant improvisations. Getz put his prodigious musical gifts to work early, joining Jack Teagarden's band at age 16 and moving on to Stan Kenton's group the following year. From then on, his musical fortunes never ceased to flourish. Nevertheless, his personal life was a disaster. Drugs. alcohol, depression, episodes of violence, a suicide attempt and lengthy divorce proceedings against his second wife provide a painful backdrop to the story of a consistently triumphant professional career. Maggin discusses Getz's performances and recordings (often delving into the backgrounds of many of the musicians with whom he worked) and analyzes his style and technique. While he presents the painful details of Getz's personal life, Maggin doesn't make much of an attempt to explain how Getz could have functioned so well on one level and failed so miserably on another. Photos not seen by PW. (May.)Library Journal
Stan Getz was a tenor saxophonist of uncommon creativity and taste. He left home while still in his teens to pursue a musical career and was a veteran of the Jack Teagarden, Stan Kenton, Jimmy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman bands by the time he was 20 years old. Though he played with some of the important bebop pioneers, his first popular success came as a ballad player. His rendition of "Early Autumn," recorded with the Woody Herman Band, sold hugely and brought him critical acclaim and a large audience. Getz later became better known as one of the architects of the "cool" jazz style and as an expert samba and bossa nova player; he is generally remembered today for his performance of "Girl from Ipanema." Maggin, a jazz concert producer, has written an eminently serviceable biography which, while unfortunately avoiding any real analysis of Getz's personality, covers his musical life at just the right level of detail. Essential for jazz collections and a serious candidate for large general music collections as well. (Index and photos not seen.)-Rick Anderson, Contoocook, N.H.Kirkus Reviews
Maggin (Bankers, Builders, Knaves, and Thieves: The $300 Million Scam at ESM, 1989) essays a definitive biography of the tenor sax great.Stan Getz (192791) was the product of a difficult forceps delivery; in the process of extrication, the obstetrician almost tore off one of the baby's ears. One hesitates to make anything symbolic out of that event, but there's no question that Getz's life was as difficult and full of pain as his birth. Getz was the older of two boys born to a working-class Jewish family in living in Philadelphia and later New York City. Throughout his life he was driven to succeed, to achieve perfection, first by his overbearing mother (who favored him) and then by his own demons. It was a drive that carried in its wake bouts of depression and lengthy battles with drugs and alcohol. Maggin is admirably, almost compulsively candid about Getz's personal problems. Getz was a brilliant sight reader with a photographic memory for music, a multi- instrumentalist who finally settled on the tenor sax and quickly rose to the top of the jazz world and stayed there for virtually his entire professional career. Maggin tells the story in exhaustive detail. Along the way, he gives brief portraits of several other important musicians who helped Getz during his career, including Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, and Woody Herman. He also offers some excellent insights into jazz history, tailored to the novice rather than the hard-core aficionado. What the book lacks in the midst of its extremely detailed recounting of Getz's career and often violent and self-destructive private life is some idea of what made his playing so great. Maggin's analysis of Getz's recordings seldom goes beyond impressionistic adjectives.
Definitive in its documentation of Getz's career but less successful as an analysis of Getz's art.