Life Of A Jazz Great Essay, Research Paper

Stan Getz was born on February 2, 1927 in Philadelphia. Starting at age six he was drawn to musical instruments. At age twelve, he finally owned one, a harmonica. Then, his junior high school gym teacher (also the band director) chose him to play the bass in a band concert one day. After playing the bass for a while, he started realizing that he was much better at reading and remembering music, and getting a sense of pitch and rhythm than any of the other students. When he was thirteen his father bought him an alto-saxophone, and Stan fell completely in love with music. He took lessons, trying out the different kinds of saxophones, and decided that the tenor saxophone, with its rich sound, was his favorite.

When he was sixteen the draft was taking away many of Jack Teagarden’s band members, so Stan tried out for a job and was accepted. Stan never got any formal training from Big Tea, but he did receive a “PhD in improvised music” from him, and also Teagarden’s “powerful lyricism” really affected Stan’s playing. Unfortunately, however, he also learned how to drink heavily from Jack. He joined Stan Kenton’s big band in 1944; played with Jimmy Dorsey in 1945; and played with Benny Goodman in 1945 and 1946. He started becoming more popular when he was a part of Woody Herman’s Second Herd from 1947 to 1949. He was one of the first members of “The Four Brothers” saxophone section, which included Zoot Simms, Serge Chaloff, and Herbie Steward. In 1948 he became more famous with the recording of “Early Autumn” with the Woody Herman Band.

In the 1950s, Stan was associated with a kind of jazz known as “cool jazz”. This basically meant that he played bebop, but he played with much self-control and subtlety. During the fifties, he was one of the most popular jazz musicians. During the decade he played with Mulligan, Jimmy Raney, Lionel Hampton, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Horace Silver, Jimmy Rowles, and Oscar Peterson. In 1954 he was incarcerated for using drugs. He started fighting the drug addiction, however, and temporarily escaped it by moving to Denmark in 1958.

He returned to America in 1961. Then, he got together with Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and singers Joao and Astrud Gilberto. This is when he helped make bossa nova, a mixture of jazz and samba, more popular. He recorded “The Girl from Ipanema” in 1963, which reached the top of the charts in 1964. His quartet played more straight ahead music beginning in 1964. Chic Corea joined the quartet in 1967. That and the use of Gary Burton’s vibes instead of a piano is why Getz can be seen as one of the Godfather’s of Jazz. In 1969, after struggling with drugs and the law again, Stan left for Malaga, Spain and stopped performing for two years.

Returning to music in 1971, Stan played with an organ band in the seventies in Europe and then at the Rainbow Grill in the U.S. He recorded a lot in the 1980s and did so right up to his death from cancer in 1991, when he was 64 years old. He had made over 300 recordings. What had set him apart from other tenor saxophonists of his time was his rich and pure tone. He will always be remembered as one of the greatest jazz saxophonists ever. An inspiration to myself, and many others around the world.

Sources

Book: Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz written by Donald L. Maggin, Copyright 1996

Internet: www.verveinteractive.com

www.allaboutjazz.com