Stan Getz

Book excerpt: Some may only know the jazz legend Stan Getz, tenor saxophonist, for his bossa nova hits "Desafinado" and "The Girl from Ipanema." However, Getz, born in 1927, began to play professionally at age 15, and his rich musical career lasted until shortly before his death on June 6, 1991. He played in a wide variety of musical settings such as big band, orchestral, quartet, and duo. The incredible beauty of his sound sparked the late jazz great John Coltrane to say, "We would all play like Stan Getz, if we could." When Getz died, jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie said, "He was sheer genius. And there's one thing about this man, he was the most melodic player on the jazz scene." This bibliography, the first of its kind, contains a total of 2,576 bibliographic citations with 2,292 of them annotated. It includes references to periodical literature, articles from news wire services, books, dissertations, films, videos, television programs, radio broadcasts, and Web sites. The citations are primarily from English-language sources. Materials in English and French as well as a handful of items from other languages are annotated. This work includes a preface that contains the scope of the work, a user's guide, and a list of more than 340 periodicals cited. The main body of the work is divided into the following sections: album reviews, performance reviews, discographies and discographical information, transcriptions, biographical and critical works, filmography, and appendix. Album reviews are provided for 240 albums, along with the discographical details for each of these albums. The appendix contains unannotated citations to materials in Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.