Top Artists – Stan Getz

Stan Getz – What The World Needs Now

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  • This 1968 jazz classic boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Stan interprets these songs beautifully – for those who don’t mind a bit of easy listening from time to time, this is music worth playing
  • Another top jazz recording from Rudy Van Gelder – big, bold and lively, just the right sound for this music
  • “Forget those snobs who dismiss this album, Getz does a wonderful job interpreting some of Bacharach’s hits. He ‘jazzes’ up ‘A House is not a Home’ with a nice upbeat tempo and ‘Alfie’ is lush with his wonderful tenor sax.”

As expected, if you clean and play enough copies of a standard domestic major label album like this Verve, sooner or later you will stumble upon a good one. The best copies are filled with studio ambience, with every instrument occupying its own space in the mix and surrounded by air. On those pressings, there is not a trace of grain, just the silky sweet highs we’ve come to expect from analog done right.

This is, of course, the premise behind Hot Stampers themselves. They are out there to be stumbled upon. You can’t tell what pressing, from what era, from what country is going to be The One (Keanu, are you listening?) until you actually sit down, clean and play a big pile of them.

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Stan Getz – Stan Getz with Guest Artist Laurindo Almeida

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More Bossa Nova

  • With two nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this copy is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – reasonably quiet vinyl too
  • Another Getz Bossa Nova Classic, recorded immediately after Getz/Gilberto, with comparable sound quality from Val Valentin’s All Tube Recording Chain (we think)
  • “Continuing his practice of running through one star guitarist after another, this time Getz has Laurindo Almeida as the designated rhythm man, featured composer, and solo foil. Jobim’s “Outra Vez” is a particularly lovely example of Getz’s freedom and effortless lyricism contrasted against Almeida’s anchored embroidering. [I]n the long view, one should be thankful that these musicians were recording so much cherishable material.”

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Stan Getz / Getz Au Go Go – Critical Listening Exercise

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Bossa Nova Albums Available Now

This album is useful as a test disc. The third track on side 2, The Telephone Song, has a breathy vocal by Astrud, soon followed by Getz’s saxophone solo. If those two elements in the recording are in balance, your system is working, tonally anyway.

Track Commentary

Side One 

Corcovado (Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars) 

On the best copies the voice is perfection. The horn is always a bit hard sounding on this track though.

It Might As Well Be Spring

The best copies are warm, rich and sweet here, with much better sound for Getz’s sax. This track has some of the tubiest magic you will find on the album.

Eu E Voce (Me and You)
Summertime

This one has real dynamics — the playing and the sound are lively, but somehow still cool…

Nix-Quix-Flix

Side Two

Only Trust Your Heart
The Singing Song
The Telephone Song

The best song on side two, certainly the most fun, and a wonderful test track as mentioned above.

One Note Samba
Here’s That Rainy Day

This is one of Rudy Van Gelder’s greatest recordings. I think it’s as good as it is because he was out of his studio (mostly) and had to revert to Recording 101, where you set up some good mics and get the thing on tape as correctly as you can. There’s hardly a trace of his normal compression and bad EQ on this album. (The sax is problematical in places but most everyone else is right on the money.) (more…)

Stan Getz / Getz Au Go Go – A Triumph for RVG

More Recordings Engineered by Rudy Van Gelder

Rudy Van Gelder Engineered Albums We’ve Reviewed

This is one of Rudy Van Gelder’s greatest recordings. I think it’s as good as it is because he was out of his studio (mostly) and had to revert to Recording 101, where you set up some good mics and get the thing on tape as correctly as you can. There’s hardly a trace of his normal compression and bad EQ on this album. (The sax is problematical in places but most everyone else is right on the money.)

I’ve gotten more enjoyment out of this Getz album than any other, including those that are much more famous. This one is (mostly) live in a nightclub and it immediately puts you in the right mood to hear this kind of jazz.

Listening to side one I’m struck with the idea that this is the coolest jazz record of cool jazz ever recorded. Getz’s take on Summertime is a perfect example of his “feel” during these sessions. His playing is pure emotion; every note seems to come directly from his heart.

What really sets these performances apart is the relaxed quality of the playing. He seems to be almost nonchalant, but it’s not a bored or disinterested sound he’s making. It’s more of a man completely comfortable in this live setting, surrounded by like-minded musicians, all communicating the same vibe. Perhaps they all got hold of some really good grass that day; that’s the feeling one gets from their playing. There’s a certain euphoria that seems to be part of the music. This is definitely one of those albums to get lost in.

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Stan Getz / Jazz Classics – Reviewed in 2011

The album contains tracks culled from two different sessions featuring a very young Stan Getz. The sound on the tracks taken from a 1953 session with the Jimmy Raney quintet (tracks one and two on both sides) is amazing.

Energetic, tonally balanced, clean and clear — a great sounding Stan Getz recording.

Unfortunately, the tracks from the 1949 session with Terry Gibbs, while interesting historically, sound like old 78’s — not our cup of tea. (more…)

Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto / Getz-Gilberto – Our Shootout Winner from 2012

Hot Stamper Pressings of Bossa Nova Albums Available Now

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone

We have been trying to find great sound (on reasonable surfaces) for this album for YEARS — I kid you not — but this 2-pack is the first Hot Stamper version to ever hit the site. We have fired up this shootout multiple times since 2006 and been left empty-handed each and every time until the last go-around. We have sunk an insane amount of dough into trying to get a few killer copies because we love the music so much, but we just haven’t had much to show for it. If you love this Brazilian-flavored cool jazz as much as we do, you might want to snap this one up because who knows when or if we’ll find another one.

Stan Getz is a truly great tenor saxophonist, the cool school’s most popular player. This LP is all the evidence you need. Side one has those wonderfully relaxed Brazilian tempos and the smooth sax stylings of Stan Getz.

Side two for me is even more magical. Getz fires up and lets loose some of his most emotionally intense playing. These sad, poetic songs are about feeling more than anything else and Getz communicates that so completely you don’t have to speak Portugese to know what Jobim is saying. Call it cool jazz with feeling.

Side one here has good bass, wonderful transparency and more presence than we heard elsewhere. The female vocals sound excellent and the sax is full bodied with clear leading-edge transients.

The side two of this set is even better, more extended up top and incredibly smooth and sweet overall. It’s got the impressive presence of the first side but could stand to be a bit fuller.

Both sides are a bit noisy as is pretty much always the case with this record — a big reason why we’ve struggled so hard with this album. The other big reason is that most copies just plain sound mediocre or worse, which you can find out for yourself by flipping over either of the Hot sides in this set.

This is an all-time jazz classic and it’s a shame we can’t find more great copies. This one isn’t going to be a top Demo Disc for any of you but it will give you two sides that show you how lovely this music sounds when you’re lucky enough to get a hold of a copy that’s not poorly mastered and obscured by seriously noisy vinyl.

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Getz Au Go Go on the Polygram Reissue – Isn’t This Record Supposed to Be Stereo?

Reviews and Commentaries for Getz Au Go Go

Hot Stamper Pressings of Bossa Nova Albums Available Now

As part of our recent [probably from 2011] shootout for the album we played what turned out to be a later reissue. According to my research it’s most likely from the late ’70s or early ’80s.   

As a general rule we make a point to go out of our way to play practically any copy we can get our hands on, in the off chance that a reissue will beat the original. It’s happened plenty of times. Those of you with White Hot Stamper shootout winning copies of some of our favorite titles know what I’m talkin’ about.

Imagine our surprise when this pressing — in a stereo jacket, with a label with the word “stereo” printed right on it — turned out to be dead MONO.

The sound was godawful — small, flat, and bereft of the ambience that makes this recording so enjoyable. The same would probably be true for the mono originals but since I haven’t played one of those in decades I will just say that that would be no more than a guess, albeit an educated one.

Yet another reason not to believe a word you read on an album jacket or label.

A public service from your record loving audiophile friends here at Better Records. (more…)

Stan Getz / Jazz Samba Encore – Notes from 2015

Yet another wonderful Getz Samba record, the third in the series. Some of our faourite music has this Samba syncopation: Sergio Mendes, first and foremost of course, but also Airto, and all the wonderful Getz albums from this period. Their enchanting Brazilian rhythms make their music fun. 

In 2006 we wrote:

This is the first copy of this record that we’ve found that was clean enough to put up on the site. Don’t expect to see another one any time soon.

We weren’t kidding. Here it is, a genuine Hot Stamper pressing, only nine years later!

Stan Getz is a truly great tenor saxophonist, the cool school’s most popular player. This album is all the supporting evidence one would ever need to prove the point. All his samba albums from this era are worth owning. We have yet to hear any Getz record from the ’70s or later that impressed us musically or sonically. If you know of any good ones drop us a line.

Side One

Big, rich and tubey, by the second track the presence is even better – listen for it.

Side Two

A wide stage and rich sound (in the lovely vocal especially). Getz’s sax is dynamic all get out as usual.

When you hear Maria Toledo singing that opening track on side two you will know you are in the presence of greatness.

AMG Review

Here’s some more bossa nova from Stan Getz when the bloom was still on the first Brazilian boom. This time, however, on his third such album, Getz relies mostly upon native Brazilians for his backing. Thus, the soft-focused grooves are considerably more attuned to what was actually coming out of Brazil at the time.

Two bona fide giants, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá (who gets co-billing), provide the guitars and all of the material, and Maria Toledo contributes an occasional throaty vocal. Getz injects more high-wailing passages into his intuitive affinity for the groove, even going for some fast bop on “Un Abraco No Getz,” and Bonfá takes adept care of the guitar solos against Jobim’s rock-steady rhythm.

Clearly Jobim’s songwriting contributions — “So Danco Samba,” “How Insensitive,” and “O Morro Nao Tem Vez” — would have the longest shelf life, and though the album didn’t sell as well as its two predecessors, it certainly helped break these tunes into the permanent jazz repertoire. Avid bossa nova fans will certainly treasure this album for the lesser-known Bonfá tunes.