Stan Getz
Focus
Stan Getz,
Tenor Sax
Alan Martin, Violin
Gerald Tarack, Violin
Norman Carr, Violin
Jacob Glick, Viola
Bruce Rogers, Cello
John Neves, Bass
Roy Haynes, Drums
Awarded GRAMMY BEST JAZZ ALBUM 1961
Inducted into GRAMMY HALL OF FAME 1999
Composed and Arranged
by Eddie Sauter
Conducted by Hershy
Kay
Produced by 
Recorded at Webster Hall
New York, NY
Recorded July 14, 28, and September-October, 1961
Catalog Number: 314 521 419-2
Format: CD
Release Date: 1997
Label: Verve
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Click on tracks
 to hear sound samples.
1. I'm
Late, I'm Late (8:08)
2. Her (6:11)
3. Pan (3:55)
4. I Remember When (5:01)
5. Night Rider (3:55)
6. Once Upon A Time (4:46)
7. A Summer Afternoon (5:58)
8. I'm Late, I'm Late (2:28)
9. I Remember When (2:58) |
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Producer's
Note
Focus was Stan Getz's favorite recording.
– Creed Taylor
Excerpt from the Liner Notes
Donald L. Maggin, in his recent biography of Getz, writes that Getz missed
a session because he attended his mother's funeral, and that he overdubbed
because of that.
Creed Taylor, who produced the record, and whose first recording with Getz
this was, says that Getz “played most of it live – there might have been
some little fills” and agrees with my theory that if Getz's mother had died
suddenly, a session surely would have been rescheduled. Further, Taylor
says, the acoustics at Webster Hall, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan,
an Armenian-neighborhood hiring hall that had become RCA's main studio,
bled too much to allow for overdubbing.
Hershy Kay, the conductor, primarily known for arranging such Broadway shows
as Leonard Bernstein's Candide, was chosen because of his familiarity with
the pool of New York string players and because Sauter himself was not that
good a conductor. Roy Haynes, Getz's drummer at the time and the only other
soloist on this record, produced a stunning part on “I'm Late, I'm Late;”
it was so successful that the two takes were placed end to end and released
on LP as one track (the single is an edited version of one of the two takes).
Getz's dream of a tour where he would perform this music with various symphony
orchestras never came to pass. There was apparently only one live performance
of this music, well after the Focus sessions, on October 18, 1963 at Hunter
College in New York, which was poorly reviewed. According to jazz historian
Dan Morgenstern, Getz was asked late in his life to play Focus live at Lincoln
Center. But Getz declined, saying that the time had passed for the music,
and that he wasn't up to it.
Why did he never try again? Blame it on the bossa nova. Taylor's second
record with Getz, Jazz Samba, was already a hit by the time of the Hunter
College performance; Getz/Gilberto was on the verge of release. They had
happened on the last big thing in popular music before the Beatles and never
looked back.
In Down Beat, Richard Hadlock calls Focus “a magnificent work that is almost
sure to be counted among the dozen or so best records of 1962.” The Penguin
Guide to Jazz says “This was surely Getz's finest hour.” Roy Carr's Jazz
on CD says it “remains the most inspired exploration in a fusion of pop
jazz [sic] and contemporary classical music.” And Michael Shera, in Jazz
Journal, writes, “Certainly this is very tasteful, charming music but it
would be nice to hear Getz backed by a swinging rhythm session again.”
In my own opinion, Getz is the great lyric tenor saxophonist of the second
half of the twentieth century, and this is his masterpiece.
–
Joe Goldberg
This Is One of the Best Jazz Albums Ever Made
I normally do not appreciate Western European jazz music, but this Swede
can really play and recompose. Excellent. This rates right up there with
Miles and course Lester Young. I met Stan in Spain at his villa. He was
really extraordinary. So was his music and I really miss him. I loved the
brother and his excellent work.
– De Garth
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Stan Getz
Roy Haynes
Photos by Chuck Stewart
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