News featuring Stan Getz

Thursday 24th January

• “Take five: John Fordham's month in jazz – January”

  John Fordham picks out musical milestones from recent weeks and suggests a few to come – from an upsurge in festivals to a group of Dutch legends visiting Britain. What have we missed, and what would you like to see John cover next month?

  In his latest monthly column, John Fordham picks some recent and imminent jazz highlights. Tell us in the comments section below if there are things we've missed, plus what you'd like to see John covering next month.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Thursday 17th January

• “Konrad Wiszniewski/Euan Stevenson: New Focus – review”

  (Whirlwind)

  American bassist Michael Janisch's Whirlwind label is fast becoming a major player on his adopted UK jazz scene – and the proprietor has cranked up its output in recent months to include releases featuring Greg Osby, Jim Hart, Gareth Lockrane and Ralph Alessi, with big-band composer Mike Gibbs' originals and Gil Evans tributes due to follow in the spring. New Focus features Janisch's forceful bass-playing, but is led by the Scotland-based partnership of saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski (a Scottish National Jazz Orchestra star) and pianist Euan Stevenson, with the SNJO's Alyn Cosker on drums. The inspiration is sax legend Stan Getz's famous 1961 album Focus, and the comparably tender-toned Wiszniewski and gracefully grooving Stevenson have written a set of appropriately lyrical originals, with the band likewise augmented by strings ensemble and harp. New Focus occasionally has a smooth-jazz predictability, but the mix of the strings' elegance, flickers of tango,…

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Wednesday 26th December

• “Sir Richard Rodney Bennett obituary”

  Composer and pianist whose work included film scores, opera and jazz cabaret

  The composer Richard Rodney Bennett, who has died in New York aged 76, pursued multiple musical lives with extraordinary success. He was one of the more distinguished soundtrack composers of his era, having contributed to some 50 films and winning Oscar nominations for his work on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Thursday 30th August

• “Ben Webster/Stan Tracey: Soho Nights Vol 2 – review”

  (Resteamed)

  When Stan Tracey was the house pianist at Ronnie Scott's in the 1960s, he creatively accompanied most of American jazz's biggest stars, including saxophonists Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins and the former Duke Ellington Orchestra legend Ben Webster, whose monumentally powerful sound, sly timing and teeming imagination are heard with Tracey's trio on this December 1964 live show. Webster swerves, hoots, brays and booms his way through a mid-tempo opener on the swing standby C Jam Blues, with Tracey's splashy treble chording, stealthy trots, jangling, double-tempo playing and unlovely grace providing the wayward alternative voice he sustains throughout the set. Webster blurs and smudges notes together like a palette-knife painting on Night in Tunisia, and his legendarily beautiful ballad tone is sublime on Chelsea Bridge and Over the Rainbow. A fast Cotton Tail has Webster operating in his usual uptempo mode, scattering gruff, short figures and smokers'-cough…

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Thursday 23rd August

• “Stan Getz: Swiss Radio Days – review”

  (TCB)

  Stan Getz was not just the man whose sax could conjure up the lapping of waves on a Rio beach (his contribution to the 1960s jazz-samba craze), and this live set from in Zurich in 1960 catches him swinging hard as well as tenderly stroking the ballads that made crowds swoon, adding the frisson of unfamiliar but very high-class partners. The volatile Getz had fired most of his European band at the start of this tour and borrowed Oscar Peterson's sidemen – bass star Ray Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen – to complement his brilliant Swedish pianist, Jan Johansson. Gone With the Wind segues gracefully from Getz's famous long-note quiver to an elegant purr as the pulse picks up. Woody 'n' You finds Johansson as inspired as his boss at thematic development. Brown's decoration of the tenor's lonesome hoots is delicious on Spring Can Really Hang You Up…

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Monday 2nd July

• “A guide to Richard Rodney Bennett's music”

  This week, Tom Service looks at a man who composes and performs across a range of musical genres and yet has found an unmistakable and personal voice

  All articles in this series

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Monday 30th April

• “Teddy Charles obituary”

  Virtuoso vibraphonist, composer and skipper in the Caribbean

  Teddy Charles, who has died aged 84, was a virtuoso vibraphonist and a boldly experimental composer. In the 1960s, he temporarily gave up jazz to live on Martinique, where he became one of the most respected American charter-boat skippers working the Caribbean. Charles observed that there was plenty in common between the uncompromising demands of seafaring and the spontaneous challenges of jazz. In his later years he returned to music, making a new studio album, Dances with Bulls (2009), 40 years after his previous one.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Thursday 26th April

• “alleged J Dilla record collection being sold in Detroit store”

  by BBG

  At first, they were just crates full of records, numbering in the thousands. But after digging through their contents, Jeff Bubeck learned he'd stumbled upon something special: what he says is the personal record collection of late Detroit hip-hop producer J Dilla.

  Read the complete article at www.brooklynvegan.com

Thursday 16th February

• “Valentine's Day songs”

  From Al Green to Yello, this is dedicated to the one you love

  Love, like an elephant, is difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it. And it can be found in unexpected quarters. So asking you for Valentine's Day songs was "a big, baggy, personal topic", as ShivSideCar put it.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Sunday 8th January

• “Stan Getz: At Nalen – review”

  (Riverside)

  Discovered last year, having been lost for half a century, this exceptional live recording dates from 1958, when Getz was living in Scandinavia. Several of the 12 tracks rise to levels of fluency and invention equal to his finest records of the 50s, while others sound surprisingly restless. Possibly the new jazz ideas from across the Atlantic had unsettled him. It certainly adds up to a fascinating and varied programme. Swedish pianist Jan Johansson proves to be an ideal accompanist. The recording quality is quite remarkable, too, capturing every nuance of that angelic tone.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk