AN APPRECIATION : Tenorman Getz--He Paid His Dues

The tenor saxophone has produced a long line of seminal figures in jazz, including Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969), the first pioneer in the 1920s and ‘30s; Bud Freeman, who died at 84 a few weeks ago; Lester Young (1904-1959) and John Coltrane (1926-1967). Stan Getz, who died Thursday of liver cancer, belonged in this company.

Acceptance on this level did not come easily for Getz, whose career started at 15. He quickly graduated to the name bands of Jack Teagarden, Stan Kenton and Benny Goodman. For some time, while paying his dues as a sideman, Getz was written off by some critical cynics as a mere clone of Lester Young.

Then came his legendary stint with the Woody Herman Orchestra and the elegant, languorous contribution to the record of “Early Autumn” that established forever his own firm identity. For many of his contemporaries the style he developed represented a coolly virtuosic reaction to the more aggressive sounds of the be-bop years.

Getz became the spearhead of a movement, even recording with others who tried to blaze the same trail. In a “Stan Getz Five Brothers” session, he played with Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Allen Eager and Brew Moore, all cool tenors in what became known as the Getz tradition.

As a prominent musician, he was recording and traveling regularly as leader of his own quartets, which included some future giants. Among his pianists were Horace Silver, Lou Levy, Hank Jones, Chick Corea, JoAnne Brackeen, and off and on since 1974, the great Kenny Barron.

For Getz, the 1950s were largely expatriate years--sojourns in Stockholm, three years based in Copenhagen. At that time there was an escalation of his problems with drugs and alcohol, which he eventually conquered. Though he was too often sidelined by illness, his acceptance by jazz audiences never flagged, winning him virtually all the jazz polls throughout the decade. Early in 1961, he returned to the U.S.

In a little over a year Getz scored two triumphs. The first was an album called “Focus,” which he always considered one of his all-time accomplishments, enhanced by the superb arrangements by Eddie Sauter. In 1962 he branched into bossa nova, when guitarist Charlie Byrd introduced him to “Desafinado” and the other samba hits. Their album led to a mass march on bossa nova by anyone who could cash in on the craze. Though that style provided Getz with a new lease on mass popularity, he eventually grew weary of it, tiring of requests for the same tunes year in and out.

After several more Brazilian-oriented hits--most notably “The Girl From Ipanema” with a vocal by Astrud Gilberto--Getz broke away from that typecasting and went on to produce a series of consistently tasteful albums in other styles. He experimented briefly with fusion, but it was out of character. The acoustic beauty of his sound never lost its luster.

Last June at Carnegie Hall, hearing Stan Getz for what was to be the final time, I was moved deeply by his wrenchingly emotional playing. Lou Levy summed it up eloquently: “No matter when you played with Stan, he would bring you up to a different creative level. It could be the Montmartre in Copenhagen or a little club in the Valley--for him every night was Carnegie Hall.”