["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial page of TOP, in which we sometimes touch upon classic art. It appears on Sundays, usually. Sometimes. Every now and then. It aspires to appear on Sundays, let's just say.]
I wanted to alert any jazz fans out there (hi, Steve R. and you 28 other people!) to my latest find—a record by Stan Getz (tenor sax) and Bob Brookmeyer (valve trombone) on Verve entitled simply "Recorded Fall 1961."
First of all, compare the sound quality from two different sources. Here's "Minuet Circa '61" from an uploader called 60otaku4, with sound quality that's vivid and upfront; the whole album is available in gentler, smoother, more distant sound quality from Jazz Everyday! [sic]—here's "Minuet Circa '61" from that source. Very different experiences, no? Yet both are okay in their own way. I prefer the former.
(Portrait of Stan Getz by PoPsie Randolph
[I can't show it here])
Stan Getz was a prolific cool jazz saxophone soloist in the West Coast style, initially known for playing bebop, but he later became a central figure in the jazz / bossa nova craze. Brazilian bossa nova, an offshoot of samba, was only briefly popular in the U.S. (the Beatles were a-comin'), but intensely so while it lasted. You've heard him on the famous "Girl from Ipanema," and the album Getz/Gilberto is one of the all-time evergreen bestsellers in jazz, up there with Time Out and Saxophone Colossus.
He was similar in a way to Charlie Parker, Art Pepper, or Benny Goodman—facile, perfect and effortless in their musicianship, but men who had rather sketchy reputations as people. Getz lived a chaotic, destructive life, leaving ruined families and broken relationships in his wake. He can't have been easy on his children. At one point his second wife, Monica Silfverskiöld, while separated from Stan, was taking care of her children with Getz and his children by his first wife. It was Monica who suggested the collaboration with João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos ("Tom") Jobim. Reportedly Getz was reluctant at first because he had heard that the Brazilian artists had a reputation for being difficult. To which Monica replied, "Well, don't you have a reputation for being difficult?" Getz was a drug addict pretty much his whole life, and never escaped it, even after he started attending AA in '83. He held up a drugstore in Seattle once to get narcotics! Getz inspired one of the most wonderful little paragraphs of any jazz bio on Wikipedia—in its entirety, it reads:
Zoot Sims, who had known Getz since their time with [big band leader Woody] Herman, once described him as 'a nice bunch of guys,' an allusion to his unpredictable personality. Bob Brookmeyer, another performing colleague, responded to speculation Getz had a heart operation with the rhetorical question 'Did they put one in?'
I recalled that from years ago when I re-read it yesterday and it made me laugh again.
If you like or are fascinated by "The Girl from Ipanema," by the way, you owe it to yourself to at least sample Adam Neely's explanation of why it's so weird*. Adam Neely makes me feel like I understand things I definitely don't understand.
As a coda, here's Stan Getz doing a pop turn with Huey Lewis and the News on a minor hit from 1988, "Small World." Three-quarters of the way through the soft-rock tune, up steps 60+-year-old Getz, incongruously inserting a limpid, vaguely truculent cool jazz solo. It reminds me of a line from a Nate Bargatze joke: "You having fun? Because I'd like to put a stop to that." One of the very few times I've ever experienced Stan not quite coming up to his customary very high standard. Lewis is obviously delighted to have him there, however. (He did seem to like horns, as I recall.)
Anyway, give "Recorded Fall 1961" a try if you're partial to classic jazz. Ira Gitler gave it five stars (their max) in Downbeat, writing, "Getz and Brookmeyer are mature players, and everything they do on this record is in perfect balance...the most important factor in the success of this set is the ease with which these men communicate their thoughts and feelings to the audience. It seems to flow out and by the same token, right in," and here's the blip from The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings:
Four stars is Penguin's maximum, and they're stingy with it. I didn't even mention that Roy Haynes is the drummer. I've found him a reliable indicator of quality jazz, whether he's the leader or a sideman. Roy passed just last November at the age of 99. I once actually wrote Roy a fan letter, a thing I've almost never done my whole life long.
That was my Saturday morning yesterday.
I love art.
Mike
*Speaking of weird, after Friday's post I had to re-watch David Lean's 1946 version of Great Expectations for the first time since high school. That is just one of the weirdest, most bizarre stories I know—it's as strange as a Wes Anderson movie. It's a purely symbolic movie somehow, like some awkward half-formed myth, but it resists any kind of sense at every turn. No naturalism to it at all. The villain gets run over by a paddle steamer, the deus ex machina Magwitch dies on cue, boy gets girl in the end apparently forgetting that all her life she's literally been trained to be cold and heartless. The whole everlovin' shebang is such a melodrama that it's a parody of melodrama. I would love to hear a psychoanalytical interpretation of the sequence of events and the motivations of the characters.
I used to rather strenuously hate it—the book, the movie, even the Classics Illustrated comic book of it that I read as a boy. Now I simply wish I'd just never been exposed to it. That infernal plot, arising from some swampy place in Dickens' perfervid mind, half ruined fiction for me, by making it seem too obviously like implausible preposterous stuff people just made up. With the notable exception of A Christmas Carol, it soured me on Dickens, too. The plot of GE, which he no doubt made up as he went along (the novel was originally published in installments) ended up a coiled and tangled thing, like a big wad of fishing line. The moment in the movie that made me want to spit-take is when Miss Havisham—Miss Havisham!—says, "What have I done?" What, that's the moment Dickens picks for her to get a little flash of self-awareness?!? In the life she's been living all those years? With the wedding cake and the wedding gown and the fake cobwebs and the thirst for revenge and the vitamin D deficiency?
Maybe Dickens was following some social programmatic intent: the wealth of young snobs coming from the labor of the rough and persecuted, yet secretly devoted, working class, and the aristocratic rich (Miss Havisham) living useless neurotic lives shut away from the sun? I don't know. I certainly don't know why they made prep school students in my day read that ill-begotten lump—it's as strange as forcing Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter on a bunch of high school virgins of both sexes. (We had to read that also, as sophomores.)
/rant. Sorry; I get going sometimes. But hey, do other photography websites give you capsule reviews of Dickens novels in a footnote? They do not. :-)
Original contents copyright 2025 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)
Featured Comments from:
Terry Letton: "Now you’ve done it, you made me think I’ve missed something. Off to Barnes and Nobel to see if they have a copy of Great Expectations!"
Mike replies: If you think you must! They will have more than one edition. I will take a stab in the dark and guess you will find five different editions at a B&N, and if you look around you might find their own edition in a soft leather-like binding looking very ersatz-posh. It will probably be on a table with more like it. I would however recommend the Folio Society edition, from the UK; it has a nice brown leather spine (if memory serves), and all the original illustrations by Marcus Stone, and a slipcase. You can find one on eBay or AbeBooks.
Peter Wright: "As is not infrequently the case, you have managed to hit on more than one of my non-photographic interests in a single post. I quite like Stan Getz, although he's not one of my major jazz favourites (that would include Dave Brubeck, and Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and many others before Getz), and I can probably go the rest of my life without hearing 'Girl from Ipanema' ever again.
"When I was in high school, I read (I think) everything by Dickens, simply because I liked his writing so much. Loved him! A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Dombey and Son, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, and more! All classics! The only one where he is clearly writing for installments, and it does get tiring, is Pickwick Papers—a sort of 19th century soap, so I don't recommend that, but all the rest? Dive right in! Including Great Expectations!"
Bryan Geyer: "Perhaps it's of no matter, but do be aware that the formerly independent bookseller AbeBooks is now (since 2008) wholly owned by Amazon. And congratulations on remembering anything from Great Expectations! I recall reading it as a teenager, along with the Bronte sisters' books, but it was C. S. Forester's series on Captain Horatio Hornblower that provided more lasting impact."
Mike replies: True dat, but AbeBooks (ABE originally meant Advanced Book Exchange) is still where most independent used and antiquarian booksellers ply their wares online.
And man, I loved those Hornblower books too! I read the whole series probably three times over by the time I was fifteen. I'm not sure I've ever found any reading that's more gripping or satisfying. But do you have to be a young boy to feel that way? I suspect maybe so....
Steve Rosenblum: "Thanks for the tip, Mike! I've been looking for new jazz (new to me that is) to listen to lately so this is racked up for a listen tomorrow. Also, sadly, Huey Lewis has lost most of his hearing due to Merniere's Disease so he no longer performs. When they were at their peak, Huey Lewis and the News were fabulous to hear live."
Tex Andrews: "What a wonderful column! So, last things first, I love Lean's Great Expectations. He's an underrated director in my opinion. That film is visually stunning and creepy in so many ways.
"On Stan Getz: the Getz/Gilberto album is a must-have for any jazz head. Bossa Nova was so huge in the early '60s, it's hard for me to believe how it's fallen so far off most folks' radar. Getz played at my college (tiny place). I had suggested to the guy who ran the spring concert program that we get out of our rut and get some jazz. For some dang reason he picked Getz. They played in the basketball gym, first mistake. His female pianist insisted they move our one grand piano from the theater to the gym—what a prima donna. Then Getz...was drunk. Basically I agree with Peter Wright above on where I'd put Getz. Important, to be sure. I heard a radio interview with Larry Coryell in the late '70s—also drunk."
robert e: "This post itself read like a nice bit of jazz, footnote and all. Thanks for that, and for all the recommendations! For what it's worth, 'Minuet' on Spotify is more like 600taku4's post, which is good, because I feel like I'm missing things when I listen to the other YouTube post. This recording wasn't on my radar at all, so I appreciate the note. Two other jazz classics you mentioned were old favorites, but weren't in my Spotify library, because I really don't have one place that reflects all the music I own, or all the music I like, or all the music I want, or the music I'm intrigued by, etc., and sometimes that seems like a real problem. What do people do these days to keep track of their music across multiple media?"
Mike replies: Beats me. Mine's all over the place. It's very unsatisfactory.
This is precisely why I’ve been reading your site for so long.
Posted by: Peter Lohnes | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 12:18 PM
A friend for 60 years Adam Nussbaum played and toured with Getz for years. Adam is worth a google. It was one of his favorite associations.
Posted by: Neil Swanson | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 12:24 PM
The 1955 release "Diz and Getz" is excellent (IMO):
https://www.allmusic.com/album/diz-getz-mw0000204250
So there's at least 29 of us......
Posted by: Paul Martini | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 01:17 PM
My 7th grade "English Class" turned the reading and "studying" 'Great Expectations' into a semester-long slog. It all made sense a few years later when I learned that Dickens was paid by the word.
[I don't think in that case he was. GE first appeared in "All the Year Round," a weekly periodical that Dickens both owned and edited. I'm sure he must have felt great pressure to produce, but it's doubtful he was "paid by the word" in any sense, although that might have been the case for other books of his.
But I'm speculating. I don't know this for sure. --Mike]
Posted by: Keith B. | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 02:00 PM
Maybe you should look-up the public apology he made on Charlie Rose a few months before he died of brain cancer. He was self-aware at the end.
[I've heard some of the Joe Smith interview with him from the end of his life, but a Charlie Rose show appearance doesn't appear to be online that I could find.
Here's the Joe Smith link at LoC:
https://www.loc.gov/item/jsmith000224/
By way of comment, a quote: "MYTH: When alcoholics are drinking, they reveal their true personality. REALITY: Alcohol's effects on the brain cause severe psychological and emotional distortions of the normal personality. Sobriety and long-term recovery reveal the alcoholic's true personality." (from Under the Influence by Ketcham and Milam. The "Myths and Realities" section alone is worth the price of the book. --Mike]
Posted by: Ken White | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 02:08 PM
Speaking of Bossa Nova, you should watch the great movie "Black Orpheus", at least once every few years.
Indisputably luscious and beautiful, Bossa Nova from that era has become so ubiquitous in easy-listening and lounge play lists that it has ended up rather self-referential and boring. The Rio de Janeiro recording industry saw it had a good thing going, and maintained a mafia-like grip on Brazilian musical styles until the rock & folk tinged MPB [Música Popular Brasileira --Ed.] movement of the late 1970s broke open flood gates.
For an even more expansive musical education, look to the pre-Bossa musical styles of Brazil: Choro and Samba.
Posted by: Tom Stermitz | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 02:15 PM
When going to school in Boston I would go to the Jazz workshop which had all the great musicians stop there and play. What a great venue. Ah those were the days! Bill
Posted by: William Giokas | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 05:22 PM
Like you, Mike, I also had a bad high school experience with Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities became, for me, shorthand for long impenetrable slogs. Now, quite a few decades later, retired me has the time for long reads. I tackled Bleak House and Dombey & Son last year, and am working my way through Little Dorrit now. Dickens was an amazing writer; I just needed some maturity to appreciate his work. PS, count me among TOP’s jazz fans.
Posted by: Mark B | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 05:23 PM
Mike: “I would love to hear a psychoanalytical interpretation of the sequence of events and the motivations of the characters.”
You might enjoy this UK podcast.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/shrink-the-box/id1663005316
Posted by: Sean | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 07:09 PM
I have a few older Getz albums recorded live in Copenhagen that are just treasures.
Anniversary
https://www.discogs.com/release/7875056-Stan-Getz-Anniversary
Serenity
https://www.discogs.com/release/7401429-Stan-Getz-Serenity
People Time
https://www.discogs.com/master/283126-Stan-Getz-Kenny-Barron-People-Time
These all come later in his career (esp. the last one) and are just straight ahead goodness.
Posted by: psu | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 08:07 PM
Thanks for the Getz/Brookmeyer tip - I'm looking for a decent recording of it. Neither of the Youtubes of "Recorded Fall 1961" sound sound right to me, one is far too bright and the other is muffled and sounds as if it has been encoded at too low of a bit rate since there appear to be digital artefacts - and I'm by no means a critical listener so if I notice them they are pretty bad. Recording technology in 1961 was capable of perfectly acceptable results if you discount the inevitable tape hiss so I am hopeful there is a better sounding version out there.
BTW there is a documentary about the record's producer, Creed Taylor:
https://snapshotsfoundation.com/index.php/articles/154-creed-taylor-documentary
Dave.
Posted by: Dave Elden | Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 09:01 PM
What's also interesting about the Garota de Ipanema is that a good part of the lyrics were lost in translation. The original lyrics speak how the beauty of girl (garota) fill the world with beauty.
An explanation about the change of mood between the English and Portuguese versions can be found in: https://oregonexpat.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/garota-de-ipanema/
Posted by: João Dinis | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 05:06 AM
The version of "Minuet" from JazzEveryday sounds like it has all the highs chopped off and is overly compressed. The version from 60otaku4 is lively and full, and sounds much more spacious and "real". So where did he get that version?
Posted by: Luke | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 08:48 AM
Thanks for the recommendation on the Stan Getz recording.
Incidentally, he and Zoot Sims moved through the jazz loft in which Eugene Smith recorded and photographed. I think you've covered that here before as well.
Posted by: Andrew Vartabedian | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 09:22 AM
Like Mark B., I discovered a couple of decades ago that we weren't forced to read those books in school for any sort of enjoyment (although some weren't bad).
They were merely introductions to keep in mind until we were experienced adults and could appreciate the topics and writing styles -- and then could properly read the books.
Posted by: Dave | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 10:03 AM
Love the movie!
Posted by: Stan B. | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 10:55 AM
It has always amazed me that such a nasty dump of a human being could also have had the most beautiful, sexy sound in all of jazz - an incongruity, if ever there was one!
Posted by: Jayanand Govindaraj | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 11:16 AM
The best Stan Getz album, IMHO, is "Focus" where he improvises to string arrangements by Eddie Sauter. A tour de force from the pre Bossa Nova days. Another lesser known album that probably requires greater recognition as an absolute masterpiece is "Sweet Rain", a quartet session with a young Chick Corea, Ron Carter (at that time, I think, still a member of the greatest jazz small group ever, the second Miles Davis Quintet) and Grady Tate.
Posted by: Jayanand Govindaraj | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 11:31 AM
You can add me as at least one more jazz fan. Funny thing, but I'm currently going through the Hornblower series. If you haven't read the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, you might enjoy that one too. Set in the same period of late 1700s/early 1800s. There are many more plot lines, and I think deeper character development. I have friends who read through the whole 20-novel series (plus an unfinished 21st manuscript), then start all over again. The shortest review of the series I've seen is 'Jane Austen on sea.'
Posted by: Neale MacMillan | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 12:10 PM
Sadly, this past January 5th Monica Getz passed away in Irvington NY. Judging by this tribute;
https://thehudsonindependent.com/a-tribute-to-monica-getz/ Monica more than made up for Stan's lack of a heart.
Posted by: Grant | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 01:58 PM
Well, now that you’ve been sampling Stan Getz and Bob Bookmeyer I hope you’ll find time to revisit Bob Brookmeyer with Gerry Mulligan. Hearing music like that live at the Village Vanguard marked the high point of my young life.
What’s your current favorite among streaming services for music?
Posted by: Michael Matthews | Monday, 13 January 2025 at 06:53 PM
Stan Getz with Oscar Peterson is maybe the most swinging album of all time. It's nuts.
Posted by: Paul McEvoy | Tuesday, 14 January 2025 at 07:23 AM
If you liked C. S. Forester's Hornblower books I would definitely recommend you check out the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. A truly wonderful series based on an unlikely friendship, and really, aren't they all?
Tom
Posted by: Tom | Tuesday, 14 January 2025 at 09:03 AM
Others beat me to it, but a double recommend for the Patrick O'Brian "age of sail" novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
They are stunningly accurate about technical matters in the age of sail (according to those that know such things) and thoroughly engaging. Like the very best (IMHO) historical fiction, they "could have" happened.
Posted by: Severian | Tuesday, 14 January 2025 at 02:18 PM
I too am a minor fan of Stan Getz, and your writing got me to read a bit more about him. Something has to be said about his long suffering second wife, Monica. She went through a lot to protect his kids and she tried to keep the family together, even though the children were not her own. In later life she became an advocate for victims of domestic violence, and she even founded the National Coalition for Family Justice, a nonprofit committed to reforming the divorce and family court systems to ensure fairness, transparency, and accessibility. Even though I am fond of Stan's music, it is unfair that his name will be remembered while she will always be "Stan Getz' second wife." Stan rewarded her for her efforts by finally divorcing her in 1988. I thought I'd mention her because she deserved better.
Posted by: Dillan | Tuesday, 14 January 2025 at 05:17 PM