A different kind of compliment

Jazz Samba Encore!; Luiz Bonfa, guitar; Stan Getz, saxophone

This evening while driving around in my Chevy Trailblazer, I listened to some experts talking on the radio about the different fear factors in a relationship. Drs. Les and Leslie P. had invented an acronym, TALQ, for the basic elements that establish foundations within a marital relationship. Any communication problem can fall under a breakdown of Time, Approval, Loyalty or Quality. As a single piano player, I didn’t listen as closely as perhaps a married piano player would have. But the term “fear factor” got my attention.

Within a few months of arriving at the Marine Barracks in DC, I had made some good friends. One day, Marine Band clarinest J. and I headed out for an afternoon in Shenandoah National Park after a morning of rehearsals at the barracks. On the way westward, J. blurted out, “You know what I like about you?” What’s that? “You’re not a hack.” That took a couple of miles to process. Do we have hacks in “The Presiden’t Own”? “It’s not for me to say.” Well. How ‘bout that? It pleased me to know that, with him, at least, I had unwittingly passed some type of test. Later that evening after I had dropped J. off at his car, I recalled that his compliment didn’t involve who I was, as much as who I wasn’t.

I listen to this album of Stan Getz with the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa frequently. It doesn’t have any personal back-story to tell, really. I just like it. That’s all.

Sometimes when I hear musicians talk about Stan Getz, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins, the musical “fear factor” hairs on the back of my neck stick straight out. The music that these fellows played in the 50’s and 60’s leaned more toward the be-bop side. At the expense of generalizing, allow me to say that I’m afraid that the term “be-bop” to me realistically means very fast chord changes with the soloist playing as many notes as he or she can play in the shortest amount of time. My ears can’t process music that fast and it ends up sounding like noise instead of music. I tend to like to feast on harmonies and the relationship that each one has to the one before and after it. And I like to listen to a nice melody that fits over those slower harmonies, not just notes that happen to fall in the same scale as the notes making up the chords underneath. Please, however, allow me iterate: that’s MY reaction to be-bop. It has its place in the world of music and all sorts of musicians grow artistically and technically from listening to it and playing it.

“Jazz Samba Encore!”, recorded in 1963, is essentially a sequel to “Jazz Samba” which Mr. Getz recorded in the previous year. He had won a Grammy for Best Jazz Performance of 1963 for “Desafinado” on that album. So it was logical to make a second volume in this Latin style.

And the style isn’t be-bop. That’s why I like it. I like it for what it isn’t. These musicians perform splendidly and they play in a style that I enjoy. See? No story. Sorry.

Credits: To Antonio Carlos Jobim, for a tidy stack of beautiful, quality Latin tunes that are, to put it quite simply, a blast to perform. And thank you for chronicling and sharing with the world your experience at the beach:

Tall and tan and young and lovely

The girl from Ipanema goes walking

And when she passes, each one she passes goes –

Ahhhhhhh.

When she walks, she’s like a samba

That swings so cool and sways so gentle

That when she passes, each one she passes goes –

Oooooooh

Oh, but I watch her so sadly

How can I tell her I love her

Yes, I would give my heart gladly

But each day, when she walks to the sea

She looks straight ahead, not at me,

Tall, tan, young and lovely

The girl from Ipanema goes walking

And when she passes, I smile –

But she doesn’t see…..