Why waste time planning what Stan Getz records to listen to when I could be listening to Stan Getz. Dad's records are all out of order now. He kept them alphabetically. I remember as a child looking at every album cover in his collection. I wasn't much for liner notes back when I was 10.  I just liked looking at the pictures. At this point, I only know that my Dad had lots of Stan Getz records. I have heard him and heard of him before. But, I can not say, "Hey, that song is Stan Getz!" if I'm listening to jazz music. I am a Stan Getz newbie.

    I scanned the titles and quickly pulled the first Stan Getz record I saw. It was Sweet Rain on Verve. I'm ashamed to admit, I still didn't know what instrument he played. This record had no hint for me on the front or back cover. I carefully examined the flawless vinyl and tried to keep any floating dust in the room from landing on it. Sure enough, it sounded like jazz! I really liked the piano at first thought Stan had to be the piano guy. As I noticed more sax than piano, I decided verify with the inside cover details. Indeed, as you all know, Chick Corea was the piano man and that meant Stan plays a tenor sax. Mystery solved. Chick Corea is on a ton of these records. I'll spend some time with Chick later.

    The liner notes were funny and prolific. I made a mental note to investigate this Johnny Magnus (whose name sounds familiar). "Don't fight it. Just go with it and let it happen . . . again and again and again." Words to live by! I closed the cover and looked closely at the pictures on the cover and back. I really wonder about the picture is on the back with, I'm guessing, the Dad and son holding the baseball bat. Who are those people? The mother and daughter on the front are blurry. Why?

     Moving on to SAMBA! Love the Jazz Samba with Stan and Charlie Byrd, Verve again! I know a little bit about Charlie Byrd because I saw the movie with Forest Whitaker. And curse, there is a scratch on side two! I can imagine my parents hosting a dinner party with this record on the turntable. Someone must have danced the samba right into the record player to make that scratch. I hear a little country influence and "Baia" gave me a Grateful Dead flashback with Byrd's guitar.

     Next up, is Focus. I'm guessing all of Stan's records were on Verve. This is different. It sounds like a soundtrack for a Broadway play, like West Side Story. The strings are way cool and I've never heard them played this way. Dad scribbled a star and a check mark next to "Her." "A Summer Afternoon" just has a check mark. The liner notes say it is "superb quality of lyrical improvisation that is brought into crisp focus." Being a musician, myself, I find improvisation to be especially impressive in jazz. I could never wing a jazz song. I bet these violins players don't improvise jazz. Good thing they had Hershy Kay. Now I know why it sounds like Broadway. You really can learn alot from liner notes. Kids nowadays don't even know what liner notes are.