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Sunday, 12 January 2025

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This is precisely why I’ve been reading your site for so long.

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.

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......

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]

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]

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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/

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?

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.

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.

Love the movie!

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!

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.

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.'


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.

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?

Stan Getz with Oscar Peterson is maybe the most swinging album of all time. It's nuts.

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

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.

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.

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