Artist Profile: Tenor Saxophonist Stan Getz

Born:

February 2nd, 1927 in Philadelphi, Pennsylvania

Died:

June 6th, 1991 in Malibu, California

The Sound, Swing, and Samba

Stan Getz was the child of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine who settled in Philadelphia and later moved to New York City. Pressured by his mother, Getz earned good grades as a young boy, with hopes of becoming a doctor and lifting his family out of their modest financial circumstances. However, after discovering the saxophone as a teen, school was no longer a priority.

Getz began playing professionally at 15, and a year later joined trombonist Jack Teagarden’s band. While on tour with Teagarden, Getz began to develop into a prolific improviser. His talent soon became widely recognized, and he spent the next several years in some of the most famous big bands at the time, including those led by Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Woody Herman.

As one of the “four brothers” (saxophonists Getz, Serge Chaloff, Zoot Sims, and Herb Steward) in Herman’s Second Herd band, Getz’ began to incorporate the sounds of Lester Young and Charlie Parker, and focused on increasing the allure of his dark, breathy tone. After being featured in a 1948 recording of “Early Autumn,” Getz became a commercial success.

In the 1950s, Getz lived in Sweden and Denmark, where he began playing with bassist Oscar Pettiford. When he returned to the U.S. in the early 1960s, he found that the jazz market was geared toward the modal jazz style coined by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Instead of following in this trend, Getz embraced the sounds of Brazilian Samba and bossa nova. With Brazilian musicians João and Astrud Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, he recorded the seminal 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, which helped spark a craze for samba-inspired jazz.

Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, and ‘80s, Getz recorded and performed internationally, solidifying his stature as an jazz master and innovator. In 1991, although battling advanced liver cancer, Getz recorded People Time, a duo album with pianist Kenny Baron. His playing on the album sounds lithe and youthful, and gives no hint of his illness. That same year, on June 6th, Getz died in a hospital in Malibu, California.