Stan Getz's Finest Hour

Stan Getz had one of the most beautiful sounds in jazz history, a light, transparent gauze that mingled high and lows, grit and sweetness. More than just a tone, it was an airy, shifting, living thing that was one with his mercurial improvisations, his sinuous flow of lyrical ideas, and his kinetic, shifting phrases. It was a sound that arrangers loved to work with, and he's matched here with strings and brass, as well as with the small groups that were his typical settings. The ballads here--such as Ralph Burns's "Early Autumn"--are gorgeous, and Getz could bring cool-school lightness to the fastest bop tempos. His sound was an ideal match for the lightly percolating rhythms of bossa nova, with hits like "Desafinado" and "Girl from Ipanema," and it's hard to imagine the Brazilian rhythm's becoming so popular without him. Almost always beautiful, Getz's playing could also be adventurous, as on "I'm Late, I'm Late," with Eddie Sauter's angular, atonal string writing, and "Symptones," from a session with Francy Boland's big band. No hour of music could capture Getz's creative range, but this is an excellent introduction that focuses on some of his stellar moments. --Stuart Broomer