"The saxophone was as much a part of Stan Getz as his own voice," writes author Dave Gelly in this new examination of the music of Stan Getz. Getz was a unique and highly personal artist who became one of the most acclaimed and commercially successful musicians in the history of jazz, despite a turbulent and often destructive private life. He first found fame in Woody Herman's "Four Brothers" saxophone section in the 1940s. Getz then embraced breakneck bop in the 1950s, and enjoyed unprecedented global fame in the 1960s with The Girl From Ipanema and Jazz Samba. At the heart of it all was an absolute mastery of his instrument, a musical precision, a lightness of touch - and, of course, that legendary, breathlessly mellifluous tone.

At the time of Stan Getz's death in 1991, several obituaries hailed him as "a pioneer" who changed the face of jazz. As Dave Gelly shows in this new examination of the great jazz saxophonist's music, the truth is much more interesting. Getz certainly absorbed Lester Young's approach to the tenor saxophone, and without doubt popularised the bossa nova as a jazz genre with The Girl From Ipanema.

But in essence, Getz was a unique, highly personal artist who spoke for nobody but himself. The real changes were those within his own playing, which grew and deepened throughout his life, sometimes even reaching beyond jazz itself. And despite all this, as this book demonstrates, Getz remained charectiristically Getz, from beginning to end.

DAVE GELLY has been writing and broadcasting on jazz and allied topics for 30 years. Jazz critic for The Observer newspaper, he writes and presents for BBC radio and has written several other books. He was named "Jazz Writer Of The Year" in the 1999 British Jazz Awards. He maintains a parallel career as a tenor saxophonist.

CONTENTS:
Another Time, Another Place; A Tuxedo And A Toothbrush; Kai's Krazy Kats; Four Brothers; Long Island Sound; Move; Everything Happens To Me; Ghost Of A Chance; The Pictures; Fine And Dandy; Focus; Girl From Ipanema; Who Cares?; Sweet Rain; Pure Getz; Voyage.

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