Lost Getz Found, to Be Released

Verve Records announced yesterday the release of a new Stan Getz album on September 9. Or June 24. The press release we received cites the June date, the advance copy of the CD states a September release. The press release also includes the embarrassing line “As [Getz] attained new clarity, as he wrestled with his immortality, he fused his life force.” Stan Getz: the immortal, dead saxophonist. Release dates seem to be the least of Verve’s problems.

Based on other things we’ve read, we’re going with Sept. 9, and sure, that’s a long wait, but this really is a new Getz release. Bossas and Ballads: The Lost Sessions, a nine-track, hour-plus-long album, presents a long lost Getz session held in March 1989 while the saxophonist was signed to A&M. The folks at Verve recently found the tapes. Trumpeter/thrift-store mainstay Herb Alpert produced the sessions (and this posthumous album) and said that these sessions “were somewhat overlooked in our eagerness to record the more ambitious Apasionado.”

But Apasionado was an overwrought misstep with strings. The music on Bossa and Ballads is relaxed, straightahead jazz played by the able quartet of Getz, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist George Mraz and drummer Victor Lewis. The band plays a set of tunes mostly penned by Barron, but also includes the Mal Waldron tune “Soul Eyes,” oft-covered by John Coltrane, as well as songs by Sam Rivers, Thad Jones and Russ Freeman and Jerry Gladstone.

Track list, all tunes by Kenny Barron unless otherwise noted:

Sunshower

Yours and Mine (Thad Jones)

Joanne Julia

Soul Eyes (Mal Waldron)

Spiral

Beatrice (Sam Rivers)

The Wind (Russ Freeman/Jerry Gladstone)

El Sueno

Feijoada

Originally Published June 4, 2003