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Stan Getz: the wasted years
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Cool. I think Getz is the reason I always wanted to play tenor sax. I’d played clarinet and alto in school bands but never had the $$ to buy a tenor.
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Great clip, thanks for sharing.
When asked about Stan Getz, Zoot Sims is credited with saying "Oh Stan, he's a great bunch of guys". In the Stan Getz bio by Donald Maggin it is suggested that Stan was bipolar, and that it's commonplace for people with bipolar disorder to self medicate with drugs and alcohol.
When asked about Stan Getz, Zoot Sims is credited with saying "Oh Stan, he's a great bunch of guys". In the Stan Getz bio by Donald Maggin it is suggested that Stan was bipolar, and that it's commonplace for people with bipolar disorder to self medicate with drugs and alcohol.
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Great story, unfortunately there were a lot who weren't able to kick their habits 
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That was sad and harrowing.
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Content aside. Great to hear Stan's speaking voice .As with many others Dexter springing, "or should that be leaping to mind". A real clue to his sound.
We just have to live with the fact that pretty well all the great jazz of the 50's and 60's was helped along( and that's putting it mildly).
I would trust any of these guys to relate the true extent before sucking up the sanitized claptrap touted by conservators ,educators and musicologists.
Self Destruction and creative genius acting in a diabolical scale perhaps?
We just have to live with the fact that pretty well all the great jazz of the 50's and 60's was helped along( and that's putting it mildly).
I would trust any of these guys to relate the true extent before sucking up the sanitized claptrap touted by conservators ,educators and musicologists.
Self Destruction and creative genius acting in a diabolical scale perhaps?
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His recognition that they would have played better straight reminds me of Stevie Ray before and after. When he got clean he was so worried that he wouldn't be able to play well; the guy was great before, but afterward his work was just miraculous.
The soundtrack to Yellow Submarine is a great example of that. When I was tripping I thought the movie was great, but now... not so much.
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Of course being obsessed with Getz I have read The Maggin biography. It is a decent read and there is a lot of great info and pics about his childhood and details about his very long career and in particular the part where he discusses accessing the "Alpha State" of relaxed concentration, but the book really angered the Getz family and understandably so. IMO there are chapters that really dug into too much detail and smut regarding the Antabuse years, domestic violence and the mutually abusive and tragic nature of Stan's relationship with Monica that we didn't really need to know.
Nice post, I enjoyed the parable of the 9ft bear
"At one point the bear came around, he could have killed five guys with one swipe, only Sam Marowitz—the lead alto player of the Woody Herman sax section—had to duck, the rest of us were so stoned we never knew the bear came over".
"At one point the bear came around, he could have killed five guys with one swipe, only Sam Marowitz—the lead alto player of the Woody Herman sax section—had to duck, the rest of us were so stoned we never knew the bear came over".
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Happy you dig it.
Getz was a unique force of nature.
I thought that quote was about Buddy Rich if memory serves me right, but I may be wrong. I think the term bipolar is a over used term and thrown around way too much. Drugs, booze,cigarettes, etc are just part of the occupational hazards of being a musician. Noting more, nothing less.
"Would have been better if played 'straight'". Could be, but this ignores the fact that the 'medication' is required for some to get out of their own heads so the music can freely flow instead of being filtered through new and old negativities. So there is a slight decrease in physical ability which is negated by the quality of the music. Many geniuses like Getz have had personality problems and were hardly ever 'happy' with anything. To them, most everything about life actually brings them down and hinders music production - they have to turn it off and get into the music head. To this effect, 'drugs' are a remarkably efficient means of temporarily doing that but they carry with them the specter of addiction and mental and physical health problems which totally crashes the party. Thank goodness drug use in jazz has dropped. At the same time we aren't getting any real meaningful jazz anymore either, but this is actually more about the way the world has changed than it is drug use or the lack of it in jazz today.
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Stan Getz A Live in Jazz
Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz by Donald L. Maggin Zoot Sims described him as “a nice bunch of guys” a reference to the many faces of one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all times—not all those...
www.seacoastjazz.org
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