Beschreibung
Stan Getz, the legendary saxophonist and bossa nova icon, would have celebrated his 100th birthday in early February 2027. To mark the occasion, saxophonist Mulo Francel pays tribute to his great colleague with a fulminant album: “Let’s Getz”.
For Francel, the album was a labour of love: „Stan Getz’s sound was moving - thanks to its unique tone, whose ethereal beauty is hard to resist. A tone that reaches even the furthest corner of the concert hall with a contour that seems far larger than what a wind player alone could produce through lips, tongue, reed, and brass tube. A magnetic tone that speaks of a more beautiful world. I’ve experienced this live on numerous occasions.“
The famous saying, “We’d all sound like Stan Getz… if we could” comes from none other than the saxophone giant John Coltrane. Yet whilst his contemporary – who was just half a year older – shaped modern jazz like no other and was emulated by legions of jazz musicians, Stan Getz, who died in 1991, found few imitators.
On the one hand, because – unlike Coltrane – Getz did not invent a new musical concept that is still being analysed, taught and developed today, even though he did popularise bossa nova. But probably above all because his trademark – that flowing melodic elegance and his warm, lyrical tone – is unique as an individual aesthetic. Mulo Francel, too, made no attempt whatsoever to copy Getz: “Our recordings are merely inspired by the original ones. They are a musical thank-you for all the beauty that Stan left behind for us. And the joyful ‘Let’s Getz’ sessions to mark his 100th birthday were great fun for everyone involved, right down to the sound engineer and cover designer.”
The origins of the project date back to Mulo Francel’s youth. It was through his father’s jazz record collection – his father having passed away at an early age – that he first discovered music: “When I was 13, I wanted to find out what my father had actually been up to, so I took his jazz records into my room. One by one. Among them was ‘Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd: Jazz Samba’. Although the album wasn’t the first to fuse American cool jazz with Brazilian music, it did make bossa nova popular worldwide in 1962. I listened to it every day.” His admiration for Stan Getz therefore goes back several decades. Now, with his new album ‘Let’s Getz’, Francel is creating a musical tribute to him.
