Cool Velvet - Stan Getz

 

'Round Midnight

Cool Velvet

Stan Getz and Strings

Orchestra Conducted and Arrangements by Russell Garcia

Cover: Merle Shore

Verve MGV-8379

1960

From the back cover: The marriage of jazz with strings is not always a happy one. Too often the incongruity between the toughness of one with the tenderness of the other creates a comic effect. Of all the leading instrumentalists today, it is doubtful whether there is anyone whose style is better suited to the muted emotions of a string background than Stan Getz, for the elements required for a felicitous blending of jazz horn with orchestral orthodoxy are all natural elements of Getz's own style. He has what might be called a non-belligerent tone, the kind of technique which enables him to flit blithely from discord to resolution without being overbearing, and about all a lyrical approach to improvisation which makes him one of the oddest fish on the jazz scene.

This style of Stan Getz may be traced back, without the aid of any sophisticated devices, to the classic Lester Young of the prewar pierced. Many of Getz's stock phrases are distantly reminiscent of the aural shapes which Lester first introduced into the jazz vocabulary. But as occasionally happens with derivative artist of unusual creative power, the derivation itself becomes an original thing through the sheer force of the artist's personality.

Over the last few years Getz has been evolving from album to album until today he is as original and instantly recognizable as any of the great jazz soloist whose works are accepted as milestones on the road of jazz development.

Like Lester, Getz is not particularly revolutionary in his harmonic approach. Compared to contemporaries like Sonny Stitt, he might even be termed slightly conservative, although he possesses all the nuances and many of the mannerisms of modernism. His deployment of the arts of tonguing and the truly amazing integration of mind and fingers produce an effect which, if it were pictorially represented, might consist of delicate traceries wrought with exquisite draftsmanship. It is essentially  a romantic style which, it must be confessed, sometimes teeters on the brink of sentimentality. But just as Lester Young hovered on the rim of affection without ever actually tumbling in, so Getz flirts with his own stylistic weaknesses without ever actually succumbing to them.

His choice of material of this album, recorded in Stuttgart, Germany with European musicians also shows a certain originality, for despite the positive glut of ballad albums, Getz has contrived to include several pieces not yet debase by over usage. Perhaps the two must significant tacks are "'Round Midnight" and "Whisper Not", because they illustrated a truth with the world at large has yet to perceive, which is that from within the confines of the jazz aesthetic, work sometime emerges of such sensibility and melodic wit that the abyss between art and popularity is bridge without any trouble. It must be hard for the layman to equate the public image of Thelonious Monk as a bespectacled buffoon with the flawless form of "'Round Midnight", which Getz so loving interprets. – Benny Green - The Observer, London

From Billboard November 21, 1960: An unusually happy marriage between jazz and pop elements occurs here. Getz' alto tones seems handsomely adaptable to the lush string backing provided by Russ Garcia. The fine selection of repertoire includes "The Thrill Is Gone," "It Never Entered My Mind" and "Early Autumn." Lovers of soft, moody background music will find their disk here... and fans of the Getz style will go for it as well, despite the strong pop orientation of the package. Dealers will do well to push this with pop buyers.

The Thrill Is Gone

It Never Entered My Mind

Early Autumn

When I Go, I Go All The Way

A New Town Is A Blue Town

'Round Midnight

Born To Be Blue

Whisper Not

Good-Bye

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