[.ca] Quartets

good sampling from Stan's early, Cool(est) period:
In this period of Stan Getz career, very late 40's and early 50's there must be some 20 CD's available with overlapping selections. So It's hard to recommend one over another. Many of the selections on this CD are also on the "Complete Roost Sessions", "Prezervation", etc. The Europeans do not recognize our copyrights and only extend original copyrights for 50 years. So as far as they are concerned, these performances are now in the public domain, the artist or the artist estate get no royalties, and anyone who feels like it can put out a copy. So how is it? Wonderful. Stan with Al Haig mostly, who is, after maybe Kenny Barron, his greatest accompaning pianist. Haig and Getz could play complex bebop with the fastest of them, but had a cool and romantically lyrical side missing from their contemporaries. Listen to "Too Marvellous for Words" for an example of this. If you don't have it on another CD (check recording dates to see) this is a good sampling from Stan's early, Cool(est) period. Recording quality? what can you expect from 1950?

I can't believe I'm the first person to review this!:
I bought this as an LP while stationed in Japan in 1962. It took me about two months just to turn it over, because the songs on side one blew me away. I was so affected by Getz's playing that I bought a tenor saxophone and subjected the rest of the guys living in the barracks to my practicing. I shudder to remember doing that. I wasn't ever very good at it. But Getz was good at it. His later stuff is very pretty, but this recording is not only pretty, it shows Getz at a time when he had a muscular edge to his playing. He was young and on fire. I have since heard other collections of his early things that come close, but as this is my first love, nothing else quite measures up. 'You Stepped Out Of A Dream' was my favorite on the album. In about 1982 I saw Stan at Keystone Korner in San Francisco. At a slow moment between tunes I called out that title and they played it for me. It was one of the high points of my life. If you buy it, I believe you will thank me. But you might have to listen to it for two months first. Who knows? The other players on this are outstanding. The piano player is particularly fine, but I've forgotten his name and am too lazy to walk downstairs to read the CD case.

• There's a Small Hotel
• I've Got You Under My Skin
• What's New?
• Too Marvelous for Words
• You Stepped Out of a Dream
• My Old Flame
• My Old Flame \oAlternate Take\c\o*\c
• Long Island Sound
• Indian Summer
• Mar-CIA
• Crazy Chords
• Lady in Red
• Lady in Red \oAlternate Take\c\o*\c
• Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away)