{"id":12511,"date":"2021-07-29T12:17:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T17:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=12511"},"modified":"2021-12-14T12:21:33","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T18:21:33","slug":"retrieving-lost-moments-in-time-with-stan-getz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=12511","title":{"rendered":"Retrieving Lost Moments in Time with Stan Getz"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A portrait of Stan Getz. Courtesy RW Theaters.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why now? Why Stan Getz now? Because he\u2019s a voice in time and beyond time, a voice within and wherever. Wherever I go, I\u2019ve come to know, I yearn to hear him, and all he has to say.<\/p>\n

I understand now, as well as a non-saxophonist can, what John Coltrane meant when he said of Getz, \u201cWe\u2019d all sound like that if we could.\u201d\u00a0 Coltrane was, among other things, a supreme master of balladeering, where many saxophonists make their bid for a sound as beautiful as possible.<\/p>\n

My own analogue to Coltrane\u2019s indirect superlative: I would carry Getz\u2019s sound with me further than any other instrument\u2019s, if forced to forsake all but one. Maybe it\u2019s a Sophie\u2019s choice between Getz and Miles Davis.<\/p>\n

As a relatively young journalist, I had already reviewed a Getz performance at the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery for The Milwaukee Journal<\/em>, a highlight among many superb artists I heard and reviewed there. Two years later, I interviewed him in Chicago, then wrote a feature previewing a Getz performance at a Rainbow Summer concert in Milwaukee. There I met him again afterwards and, though brief, the reacquaintance still holds a tight grip on my heart. You see, after a brief exchange of pleasantries, I agreed to accompany him in a walk to his hotel room, but he had one small condition.<\/p>\n

Would I please carry his saxophone for him? After the performance, he was fatigued, partly the byproduct of years of abuse of his body with drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n

I accepted the task gladly, and the instant thrill of carrying one of the world\u2019s most revered artistic instruments, beside its owner and artmaker, inspired a short poem, \u201cBossa Not So Nova.\u201d 1<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ve written about Getz in three modes but, mea culpa<\/em>, it still doesn\u2019t seem enough.<\/p>\n

Lately I\u2019ve revisited him upon buying a used copy of the Getz musical biography Nobody Else But Me<\/em>, by Dave Gelly. It discourses across the artist\u2019s career with close readings of numerous Getz recordings, his legacy beyond memories, as he died in 1991.<\/p>\n

This excellent book prompted me to dig out an array of Getz recordings.<\/p>\n

As I write, I\u2019m listening to him essay \u201cInfant Eyes,\u201d an exquisite ballad by another giant of the tenor sax, Wayne Shorter, and each limpid whole note unfurls with delicious tenderness and knowing delicacy.<\/p>\n