Stan Getz - Interpretations (1954) - 27 August 2011

When the first two "Interpretations" albums by the Stan Getz quintet proved so successful, the next step obviously was to follow the pattern and this — as you must have gathered by now — was indeed done. What gave the first two "Interpretations" their standout quality, most critics agreed, was the unity of the five musicians as well as the topflight musicianship of all concerned. There is especially solid rapporti between the two featured soloists —Stan Getz, tenor saxophone, and Bob Brookmeyer, trombone. and one of the reasons for this could be the year which Brookmeyer spent with the Getz unit in 1953. This was a highly profitable year for both in terms of musical growth. ("The only way you learn," Getz once said, "is by playing with the best — so that there's always two challenges; first, your own inner challenge and then the fecling of being spurred by men who swing in your own outfit.") Getz, of course, has long been regarded as one of the foremost tenor men in modero jazz, a suspicion which first took hold strongly when he (with Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff and Herbie Steward) provlded Woody Herman with the "Four Brothers" round. It was Getz whose solo gave much meaning to Herman's recording of the Ralph Burns composition, "Early Autumn". Since then he has been occupied largely with leading his own group, in most cases a quintet.
Bob Brookmeyer, who incidentally studied piano at Kansas City Conservatory, is one of the few and also just about the finest valve trombonists around today. He has played with such groups as Gerry Mulligan's and Terry Gibbs' as well as tours (as a pianist) with Tex Beneke, Ray McKinley and Louis Prima. A man of extraordinarily wide range of expression, Brookmeyer has an equally good reputation as an arranger and composer. (One of Brookmeyer's selections, "Oh, Sane Snavely" is included in this album.) Pianist Johnny Williams, out of Windsor, Vt., has been a member of the Getz unit in addition to playing with Charlie Barnet's band. An Army Air Forces veteran of World War II, drummer Frank Isola has also played with the Mulligan and Getz groups in the past, while the quintets bassist, Teddy Kotick, has largely confined his work to the East, including appearances with the great alto sax artist, Charlie "Bird" Parker.
For no calculated reason, the selections on the A side are taken from three separate eran.— "The Varsity Drag", to begin with, is a tune associateti with the ebullient 1920s; Duke Ellington's "lt Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" is, of course, from the Swing Era—the 1930s. "Give Me the Simple Life" was popular in the mid-1940s, shortly alter the end of the war when the simple lite was every ex-GI's happy hope. The B side includes an evergreen standard, "I´ll Remember April" along with the aforementioned Brookmeyer original.

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