The
Stan Getz entry in Universal Music's discount-priced best-of series
20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection is a pop fan's look at a jazz artist. Drawing upon the Verve Records catalog, the selection leans heavily on
Getz's popular bossa nova records of the early '60s, particularly the number one
Jazz Samba LP and the number two
Getz/Gilberto, including the hit singles "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Desafinado," which are placed up front in the sequencing. "Manha de Carnaval" (known to pop fans as "A Day in the Life of a Fool" for
Carl Sigman's English-language lyric) and the 1967 version of "O Grande Amor" also come from albums that made the pop charts,
Big Band Bossa Nova and
Sweet Rain, respectively. That covers the first half of the disc, and on the second half, the songs are mostly familiar standards. "Early Autumn" is a remake from the 1960 album Cool Velvet, not the version
Getz played with
Woody Herman.
Getz appears unaware of the downcast lyrics to
Burt Bacharach and
Hal David's "A House Is Not a Home," giving the tune a jaunty arrangement. That's in contrast to his treatment of
Jimmy Webb's "Didn't We," which brings out all the melancholy
Webb put in his words. It seems safe to say that a
Getz fan, given the assignment of picking an hour's worth of the saxophonist's music, would not choose all of these tracks, but some of them definitely would make the cut, and the music offers variety, offering
Getz Brazilian, big band, and even string backings, over which he plays with his usual assurance.~William Ruhlmann