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Biography
In the 1950s, Stan was associated with a kind of jazz known as "cool jazz".
This basically meant that he played bebop, but he played with much self
control and subtlety. During the fifties, he was one of the most popular
jazz musicians. During the decade he played with Mulligan, Jimmy Raney,
Lionel Hampton, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Horace Silver, Jimmy Rowles, and
Oscar Peterson. In 1954 he was incarcerated for using drugs. He started
fighting the drug addiction, however, and temporarily escaped it by moving
to Denmark in 1958.
He returned to America in 1961. Then, he got together with Brazilian
composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and singers Joao and Astrud Gilberto. This is
when he helped make bossa nova, a mixture of jazz and samba, more popular.
He recorded "The Girl from Ipanema" in 1963, which reached the top of the
charts in 1964. His quartet played more straight ahead music beginning in
1964. Chic Corea joined the quartet in 1967. (That and the use of Gary
Burton's vibes instead of a piano is why Getz can be seen as one of the
Godfather's of Jazz). In 1969, after struggling with drugs and the law
again, Stan left for Malaga, Spain and stopped performing for two years.
Returning to music in 1971, Stan played with an organ band in the seventies
in Europe and then at the Rainbow Grill in the U.S. He recorded a lot in the
1980s and did so right up to his death from cancer in 1991, when he was 64
years old. He had made over 300 recordings. What had set him apart from
other tenor saxophonists of his time was his rich and pure tone. He will
always be remembered as one of the greatest jazz saxophonists ever.
