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Sunday, January 18, 2009

Stan Getz at Large



Now here's a treat.. I found this at a junk shop.. you know the kind of place... it smells..its basically a bunch of garbage on sale for more than you would pay to get the stuff new at Macys.. the records are full of mold and scratched up and you're lucky if you ever find anything but you stop by every once in a while because as a record hunter you just never know when you will get that one record you're looking for.. this time I found this double lp called Stan Getz at Large on Verve MGV 8393 (with some mold issues of course! But once cleaned up it actually plays great).. This is a "live" recording of Getz in Copenhagen probably a year or two before the seminal Getz/Gilberto in other words a year or two before Getz went into his bossa nova period... Its a quartet setting with Getz apparently backed by some local musicians who are not even credited in the notes in the inner gatefold.. So enough with the intro you say, how's the music? This is exactly the kind of jazz record I live for.. Getz literally floats on top of the unobtrusive accompaniment..I like quartet dates with only one horn... The set begins with a gorgeous version of one of the greatest American songs ever written: Cole Porter's Night and Day...There's some cool original tunes which I think are only on this album such as "Pammie's Tune" and "Cafe Montmartre Blues".. Although this was supposedly recorded at the Cafe Montmartre (site of famous Dexter Gordon residency) I think it may have actually been recorded in some church in Denmark..not sure on that...Getz apparently settled in Denmark like many musicians (Gordon) to escape from his heroin addiction and the IRS... This LP was one of the last LPs issued by Verve before Norman Granz sold the company to MGM and has the deep groove silver Verve labels that came after the Trumpeter labels..$2

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