Personnel:
Stan Getz (ts), Charlie Byrd (g), Keter Betts (b), Gene Byrd (b, g), Buddy Deppenschmidt, Bill Reichenbach (d), Gary McFarland (arr, dir)
Reference: FSRCD 753
Bar code: 8427328607537
When Stan Getz returned to New York early in 1961 after more than two years in Denmark, he found jazz trends in the U.S. had moved towards harder, more aggressive statements, characteristics not found in his lyrical approach. So, in the 1960 readers poll, he had slipped from the first place tenor slot he had won every year since 1950. The tide did not turn until 1962, when he and guitarist Charlie Byrd recorded Jazz Samba for the Verve label. I didnt know anything about bossa nova, Getz said. The idea developed of making an album of some of these tunes. I just thought it was pretty music. I never thought it would be a hit.
Yet the album started the Bossa Nova movement in American popular music and Jazz Samba rocketed up the charts and got Getz on to rock-and-roll stations, so that teenagers were listening to the single version of Desafinado, pulled up from the Verve LP. Suddenly, Getz was the only jazz saxophonist in the charts, and Desafinado made the Billboard Top 20 for pop singles and won a best solo jazz performance Grammy for Getz. In a culminating irony, he returned to top place in the 1962 Down Beat Readers Poll.
Sparked by the Getz-Byrd smash album, the bossa nova trend continued to build with more albums. The first follow-up, Big Band Bossa Nova with Gary McFarland, was in the charts, too, for several weeks. Yet a year before, Stan Getz had been playing every bit as brilliantly, and as sensitively as in these albums. The difference was his successand thats show business.
Notes on "Jazz Samba":
"Partly because of its Brazilian collaborators and partly because of "The Girl From Ipanema," Getz/Gilberto is nearly always acknowledged as the Stan Getz bossa nova LP. But Jazz Samba is just as crucial and groundbreaking; after all, it came first, and in fact was the first full-fledged bossa nova album ever recorded by American jazz musicians. And it was just as commercially successful, topping the LP charts and producing its own pop chart hit single in "Desafinado." It was the true beginning of the bossa nova craze, and introduced several standards of the genre (including Ary Barroso's "Bahia" and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Desafinado" and "Samba de Uma Nota Só" [aka "One Note Samba"]). But above all, Jazz Samba stands on its own artistic merit as a shimmering, graceful collection that's as subtly advanced -- in harmony and rhythm -- as it is beautiful. Getz and his co-billed partner, guitarist Charlie Byrd -- who was actually responsible for bringing bossa nova records to the U.S. and introducing Getz to the style -- have the perfect touch for bossa nova's delicate, airy texture. For his part, Byrd was one of the first American musicians to master bossa nova's difficult, bubbling syncopations, and his solos are light and lilting. Meanwhile, Getz's playing is superb, simultaneously offering a warm, full tone and a cool control of dynamics; plus, Byrd's gently off-kilter harmonies seem to stimulate Getz's melodic inventiveness even more than usual. But beyond technique, Getz intuitively understands the romanticism and the undercurrent of melancholy inherent in the music, and that's what really made Jazz Samba such a revelatory classic. Absolutely essential for any jazz collection."
Steve Huey -All Music Guide
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Notes on "Big Band Bossa Nova":
"Fresh from the sudden success of Jazz Samba and "Desafinado," Stan Getz asked the 28-year-old, strikingly gifted Gary McFarland to arrange a bossa nova album for big band as a follow-up. Getz is always his debonair, wistful, freely-floating self, completely at home in the Brazilian idiom that he'd adopted only a few months before. McFarland usually keeps things nice and spare (although "One Note Samba" is uncharacteristically cluttered and a bit too discordant for the material), letting his pungent voicings stab the air now and then, while allowing the soloists all the room they want within the confines of producer Creed Taylor's tight timings. Four of the eight songs are by McFarland (none of which would become standards), and Getz makes relaxed impressions with "Manha de Carnival" and "Chega de Saudade." Jim Hall takes the role of acoustic guitarist from Charlie Byrd with his usual fluidity, and Hank Jones ruminates in a boppish way on piano. This album also charted quite respectably (number 13) in the first flush of the bossa nova boom."
Richard S. Ginell -All Music Guide
