Search - Stan Getz :: Bossa Nova Albums (Slip)

UMG (Verve) Could Have Done More With This Re-Release.

William P. Magliocco | Atlanta, GA USA | 01/10/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As one would expect, this is a re-release of the five core Stan Getz albums released on Verve in the early to mid 1960's. There is no bonus material with this set; the CDs are sequenced and packaged as the original LPs were.



The music is wonderful, as one would expect. However, I feel UMG missed the boat. There is no additional program or technical documentation with this set other than what was originally released with the vinyl albums. UMG does not mention if these CDs were "lovingly" re-mastered from the studio tapes, or any production data for geeks like me. In addition, the reproductions of the original LP cover notes are very hard to read when shrunken down to a CD-sized package.



Also, there are 39 songs spread across five CDs. If you look hard enough, you can find an older four CD release of a five LP set originally released in the 1980s called "Stan Getz: The Bossa Nova Years". This set has 51 tracks; the 39 found on the original five albums as well as a dozen bonus tracks. Even at a slightly higher price per disc, it might be a better value. I can't say for certain as I do not own that CD release (I have it in vinyl). Nor could I comment on the audio quality of an older CD release (there are many critics that feel early CD releases of legacy LPs had serious audio problems).



I will admit this was an impulse buy at a Border's store on New Year's Day, 2009. The copyright is 2008, and I am going to assume UMG put this re-release together for the xmas 2008 shopping season.



And the record company executives continue to ask why business stinks...In the case of a re-release like this, they could have done a lot more with it..."

Getz, Bossa Nova,....BEAUTIFUL!

J. Dearent | 05/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"All of Stan's Bossa Nova albums on Verve beautifully recorded and repackaged. These are the studio recordings. A live date, Getz Au Go Go also on Verve and The Best Of Both Worlds on Columbia complete the Bossa Nova recordings by this master of the saxophone."

Killer set

David W. Coble | Olympia, WA | 09/20/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the painful process of gradually replacing my treasured vinyl LP's with CD's, I recently went looking for my two favorite Stan Getz bossa nova recordings--Getz/Gilberto and Jazz Samba with Getz and Charlie Byrd. I was prepared to shell out maybe [...] each for these classic 1962-1963 recordings, which brought South American jazz to American ears for the first time...Getz was down there, heard it, dug it and thought the world deserved to share it. I came across this 5-disk boxed set used, in like-new condition for [...] (yes, folks, that's FIVE (5) disks, count 'em, ALL of Getz's bossa nova material in perfect condition for twenty bucks).



The remasterings are perfect--clear, detailed, not over-produced, just as mellow as the originals and pure as if they were recorded yesterday in a state-of-the-art studio instead of 45 years ago...all five masters were produced by board whiz Creed Taylor on the Verve label a couple of years before he founded his own label, CTI (Creed Taylor Incorporated) and jump-started the careers of an army of geniuses, some of whom are still with us. At the helm of CTI, Taylor was the driving force behind what came to be called "fusion," a stylistic description I still don't quite get, it's an alternative jazz form that some nose-in-the-air, hipper-than-thou critics put down as "non-purist" or some such jive because it's not purely spontaneous and improvisational, or something along those lines...among CTI's impure artists were the likes of Joe Farrell, Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Elvin Jones, Hubert Laws, Freddie Hubbard, Paul Desmond, Art Farmer and Stanley Turrentine. Miles Davis sat in on a few CTI records, and these artists backed each other on various CTI releases (it pays to read the small print listing the personnel performing on each cut).



So call me impure and say I don't know crap about jazz, because I have many of the original fusion LP's and recently plunked down [...] for a Goldring 1042 phono cartridge and [...] for a Rega tonearm I couldn't afford, just so I can play my LP's in their original glory. I'm replacing some records with CD's for convenience' sake, not because I prefer digital to vinyl. The old CTI, Blue Note, Vanguard and Verve LP's are thick, solid and beautifully engineered. Anybody who wants my CTI LP's will have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.



These five Bossa Nova disks were landmark recordings in their day, each one bringing in a few different musicians and styles, and NOBODY had heard anything quite like 'em in '62...Getz's oh-so-sweet tenor sax never overpowers Gilberto, Bonfa or Byrd's fantastic guitar solos or Astrud Gilberto's sexy vocals. No jazz collection is complete with one or two of Getz's bossa nova recordings and here you get the entire cycle, EVERYTHING from the famous collaborations featuring some little-known masters and a few well-known names as well (Doc Severinson, Jim Hall, Antonio Jobim...). I dig this style, like I said some jazz purists knocked it but if you like Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker, Paul Desmond or Getz's more traditional stuff don't hesitate--treat yourself to this massive collection. The ONLY thing I can complain about is that the original LP liner notes were shrunk to fit on a CD box but hey, a cheap magnifying glass cures that.



Even at [...] the five-disk collection is a bargain. There's nothing real deep here, that's not what Bossa Nova is about--it's accessible, fun, tuneful, joyful, soulful, sometimes laid back and sometimes cookin'. You can tell the players were having fun...looking at the liner notes, all five disks were laid down in one or two days tops and the recordings couldn't be any better.



In filling out these review forms there's a box at the bottom that reads "Tag this product," and offers some tag suggestions. Among the suggestions for The Bossa Nova Albums are, "cool jazz,", "latin jazz," "classic jazz," "bossa nova", "hard bop," and my personal favorite, "modern postbebop." I honestly don't know quite what that means but it sure sounds neat, so I'm going out on a limb and tagging this set, "Hard Bop Neo-Modern Postbebop Cool Latin Jazz." That pretty much sums it up.



The cats I mentioned above were just some of those who signed with CTI, perhaps the most amazing amount of studio talent that any jazz label ever had on hand at the same time. I've got an image in my head, friends hanging around the same building sipping brewskies, maybe smokin' a little wacky tabakky and saying, "Hey dude, is that mic live?...let's lay something down, I've had this riff in my head all day I can't get rid of."

"