Stan Getz: Bossas & Ballads: The Lost Sessions : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In 1989, Stan Getz was recovering from a heart attack. Diagnosed with liver cancer, he went in the studio with producer and label boss Herb Alpert for what pianist Kenny Barron says was the jazz saxophonist's "first sober recording date." Days later, Getz, Barron, Alpert, bassist George Mraz and drummer Victor Lewis finished an album in the bossa-nova style of Getz's classic sides from the Fifties and early Sixties, but Alpert rejected the recordings in favor of a radio-friendly set with contemporary synthesizer sounds, 1990's Apasionado. Twelve years after Getz's death, those shelved quartet sessions, mostly of Barron originals, have finally been released. Recorded simply and played elegantly, Bossas and Ballads is warm with the passion of a famously cool master celebrating life at the edge of death.

BARRY WALTERS
(RS 934, October 30, 2003)