Stan Getz - Getz at The Gate

Released June, 2019. Previously unissued recording of master jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and his quartet, featuring Steve Kuhn, John Neves and Roy Haynes. Recorded on 26 November 1961 at New York’s Village Gate.

The show was professionally recorded with a view to possible commercial release but, after those plans were forgotten, the tape sat in the vaults for 58 years. The recording serves as a priceless document of a direction that Getz, ultimately, did not follow.

Returning from a period of living in Europe, he put together this new quartet to pursue a slightly more modern and aggressive sound which was gaining ground, notably via John Coltrane’s quartet, in which Kuhn had recently been playing. But in 1962, Getz’s Jazz Samba album with guitarist Charlie Byrd heralded the start of the bossa nova boom, and steered the course of Getz’s career for the following years.

Getz at The Gate contains performances of several tracks that he had recorded in the 1950s, including ‘When the Sun Comes Out,’ ‘Like Someone in Love’ and ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.’ It also hints at where he might have gone if the bossa nova sound had not dictated his next direction, with Getz’s only known recordings of ‘It’s All Right with Me’ and ‘Yesterday’s Gardenias.’ The album also showcases the uptempo choruses of ‘Airegin’ and an impassioned version of ‘Where Do You Go?’.