Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz

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 he would survive the 1950s, he was still swinging and creating gorgeous music even as he fought a courageous battle with the cancer that finally overcame him in 1991. Read more