From the archives
Geoffrey Smith marvels at a newly rediscovered live set from American tenor sax legend Stan Getz
Mid-career can be an uncomfortable time for a jazz musician. In 1961, star tenor saxophonist Stan Getz returned to America after a five-year tax exile in Denmark. How could he reclaim his old eminence in a new jazz scene dominated by such radical spirits as John Coltrane? In fact, as a never-before-issued live session shows, the tenor veteran landed running, obviously still in his competitive prime. Getz at the Gate (2 CDS, 3 LPS; Verve 774 2865) captures him in wailing form with a quartet at New York’s Village Gate in November 1961, in a vintage programme which reveals all the fluency, lyricism and fire which were his trademarks, along with a contemporary cutting edge.
By the time this session was made, Getz and his partners were well played in. His ‘Boston band’ was a stellar team featuring pianist Steve Kuhn, a student and devotee of Bill
Evans adept at both intriguing, open-ended chords and agile lines; bassist John Neves, a master of driving time; and on drums, the great Roy Haynes, a Getz favourite, whose incisive, quick-witted attack caught every nuance of the tenorist’s solo flights. As Getz once put it, ‘He has the biggest ears in the world.’
They make a formidable unit, and from the first note, it’s clear that Getz’s creative hunger is as intense as ever. His opening ‘It’s Alright with Me’ swirls with invention, even on the melody, and he makes Sonny Rollins’s hard bop anthem ‘Airegin’ searingly his own. He stretches out happily on a loping ‘Blues’, and demonstrates his gorgeous ballad touch on ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’. And however many times he must have played ‘Stella by Starlight’, it still comes across as fresh, tender, serenely swinging.
Fans of John Coltrane tried to pit him against Stan Getz, as the true face of contemporary tenor, but Trane was a Getz admirer, once declaring ‘We’d all like to sound like that if we could.’ This set brilliantly shows why.