Of the many records Stan Getz (1927-91) recorded between 1961 and 1972 – the years the tenor saxophonist recorded for Verve Records while it was owned by MGM – Marrakesh Express seems the least likely to make its 21st century reappearance on vinyl. All the same here it is in 2025, beautifully presented on 180-gram vinyl, and released as part of the Verve by Request series and pressed by Detroit’s Third Man Records,
Marrakesh Express was the third of three orchestral efforts Getz waxed of contemporary pop music, following What the World Needs Now (1968) and Didn’t We (1969). Those two discs were originally Verve releases, whereas Marrakesh Express, like similar crossover attempts of the period by fellow Verve artists Jimmy Smith and Bill Evans, was issued on the MGM label (the reissue retains MGM’s graphics but uses the Verve logo).
Jazz critics – and many listeners – back in the day were ruthless to records like this, unwilling to consider whether there was any merit or artistry in such blatantly commercial music. Many hardcore jazzers wrote off this music as “easy listening,” the antithesis of what they considered “real jazz.” Phrases like “sell out” or “cash in” were often bandied about, too.
Baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan even went so far as cheekily calling one of these records “If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em!” But others, like Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, refused to buckle under the pressure to go “pop.”
The record-company suits, who saw younger record buyers gravitating toward rock and roll, forced jazz guys like Stan Getz to do this sort of thing. The marketing department hoped kids would dig hearing jazz greats riffing on “their music.” What’s more, they believed, however naively, that jazz record buyers would enjoy hearing their favorite players riff on more contemporary material than the Tin Pan Alley and Broadway musical warhorses of previous generations.
Many of these records – often strikingly saccharin and overproduced – came and went with little notice. Several notable exceptions, however, include the Verve and A&M records of guitarist Wes Montgomery and saxophonist Paul Desmond’s Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970). However mixed their initial reception may have been, these hold up particularly well and have remarkably withstood the test of time.
Stan Getz’s Marrakesh Express may very well be another one of those exceptions: it is an astutely-chosen program, imaginative arranged and sincerely fronted by the signature warmth and burnished sound that sold millions of bossa nova records in the sixties.
Marrakesh Express was produced by George Martin (1926-2016), who, unusually, is credited on the record’s front cover and was best known at the time for producing hits in the sixties by Cilla Black, Matt Monro and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Oh, yeah, and The Beatles, too, the sixties phenom that had disbanded only six months before this album’s release.
Martin had extensive experience as a producer, including jazz albums by Johnny Keating and Dudley Moore, as well as a leader of top-of-the-pops instrumental records of his own, including George Martin Scores (1965) and British Maid (1968). Martin also scored such films as The Beatles’s Yellow Submarine (1969) and, later, the 1973 James Bond entry Live and Let Die.
Arrangements for Marrakesh Express were handled by the vastly underrated English arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist Richard Hewson. Hewson (b. 1943) had previously arranged “I Me Mine” and “The Long and Winding Road” for The Beatles as well as Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days,” the 1968 number 2 hit produced by Paul McCartney.
Unlike many arrangers charged with grafting charts on contemporary fare at the time, Hewson was still in his twenties when he was doing this work. He was, if not hip to it, then cool with it. In addition to work in film, TV, radio and library music, Hewson would go on to arrange such hits as Wings’s “My Love” (1973), Kiki Dee’s “I’ve Got the Music in Me” (1974), Jigsaw’s “Sky High” (1975), Carly Simon’s 1977 James Bond hit “Nobody Does it Better,” Chris Rea’s “Fool (If You Think it’s Over)” (1978) and the Oliva Newton John songs from Xanadu (1980, including the hits “Magic” and “Suddenly”).
The program is a mostly typical troll through AM-radio fare of late 1969 to mid 1970, with several surprises thrown in for good measure. Graham Nash’s “Marrakesh Express,” a Top 40 hit for Crosby, Stills and Nash, gets film-like main-titles sequence sound that actually works, with Hewson’s orchestra suggesting excitement and adventure. It practically shouts “All aboard the train!”
Likewise, Paul Simon’s “Cecilia” (also covered on the previously mentioned Paul Desmond record) gets a touch of The Beatles magic – namely from “Ob La Di, Ob La Da” – that invests this lively number with an entirely new wit.
The set also manages to fit in no less than four Burt Bacharach-Hal David tunes, without duplicating any material from What the World Needs Now, Getz’s album-length tribute to Bacharach: “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” (from Promises, Promises), “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “The April Fools” (from the 1969 film of the same name), all hits for Dionne Warwick, and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ [sic] on My Head” (from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), a number one hit for B.J. Thomas.
In a nice touch on “April Fools,” Hewson adds a minor chord counterpoint at the chorus’s end that gives the song a frission that keeps it from getting too treacly. It’s the same sort of gesture David Shire employed in his 1976 score to All the President’s Men. (Martin himself arranged and produced a version of “April Fools” for Cilla Black’s 1970 Sweet Inspiration, an album which also features Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” heard here too.)
The album’s high points, however, are those where Hewson’s charts – or Martin’s production – allow Getz the opportunity to really explore or expand upon a given theme. By my count, this happens all of four times.
First and foremost, there is the all-too-little known “Just a Child.” It’s a wonder how this little-known jazz gem landed on an otherwise pop program. Composed by film composer Johnny Mandel, whose music is much-loved by jazz players of multiple generations, long before his film career started, “Just a Child” was first performed by fellow West Coast Cool tenor saxophonist Bill Perkins in 1956. Here, Hewson lets Getz loose over a striking Bartok-like string arrangement that recalls Eddie Sauter’s work on Getz’s landmark Focus album from 1961.
Hewson brings back the strings, in more of a quartet fashion, for the album’s sole Beatles cover, “Because.” Originally appearing on the Fab Four’s Abbey Road (1969), the John Lennon-penned, though Lennon/McCartney-credited ,anthem was said to be inspired by Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” – but backwards. George Martin himself played the electric harpsichord that opens the heavily-overdubbed original.
Such studio wizardry was likely kept to a minimum here. Hewson beautifully blends his string quartet with a Spanish guitar, a touch of the Rodrigo that recalls the work of Gil Evans and Miles Davis a decade before, and hints at something arranger Don Sebesky would often do in later years. Getz rises to the occasion, reveling in the song’s ethereal, near classical beauty.
The tenor saxophonist also responds especially well to “Without Her” and, remarkably, the Romeo & Juliet theme.
The former is a little-remembered 1967 hit for Harry Nilsson (1941-94), a favorite among the Beatles at the time (Nilsson later befriended John Lennon). Here, the baroque pop original heads South of the Border, hueing to a more upbeat Tijuana Brass treatment that Getz nicely digs in on. (Oddly enough, Herb Alpert covered the song in 1969 – as a vocal – in a most un-Tijuana Brass way).
Nino Rota’s lovely theme from Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film Romeo and Juliet (also known as “In Capulet’s Theme” and “A Time For Us”) was a number one pop hit for Henry Mancini (!) in 1969, displacing – of all things – The Beatles’s “Get Back” from the top slot. While it became an easy-listening favorite at the time, Getz really amps up the jazz quotient here, offering a breathtaking solo, aided by a welcome walking bass line. (Martin also produced a version of “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” for British film composer and bandleader Ron Goodwin’s 1970 album Excitement!)
Like many easy-listening records of the day, none of the supporting players are identified, either on the LP jacket or in any of the discographies. While some sources indicate Marrakesh Express was recorded in New York in 1969, the aural quality of the production and the record’s release date seem to suggest a largely 1970 recording in London , likely at Martin’s own AIR Studios with a hand-picked crew of regular players.
It’s worth pondering whether certain stars of the British aristocracy make guest appearances here, but it’s unlikely. Other than an upright bassist with strong jazz chops, Stan Getz is the only player who merits attention. That is, perhaps, as it should be.
Marrakesh Express was released in October 1970 to little attention (to date, the record has not been issued anywhere on CD). Surprisingly, no singles were issued, although several tracks here, cleverly arranged by Hewson and warmly delivered by Getz, are eminently worthy of popular attention.
The jazz press took no notice of the album either. But industry publications received the record warmly: “Here’s an album,” wrote Record World, “to make you stop, look and listen – very closely. Stan Getz, absent for a spell, produced by Beatles producer George Martin and contemporary tunes. Getz, of course, just has no peer at what he does.”1
Added Cash Box: “Stan Getz turns to a catalog of recent hit songs and applies his smooth styling to them with pleasant results. Title tune is neatly arranged and rendered, ditto ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again,’ ‘Both Sides Now,’ ‘The April Fools,’ and ‘Love Theme From Romeo And Juliet.’ Getz has stepped out more clearly into the MOR spotlight and with this George Martin-produced LP, he should do quite nicely.”2
In a more objective – and on-the-nose – assessment, Audio magazine noted that “Normally a jazz giant, even of Getz’ caliber, isn’t able to fight his way through ‘Hollywood extravaganza’ arrangements such as this, but careful mixing has kept Getz in front of this group, even if he isn’t leading them. Getz is mellow and sweet, and the disc won’t turn you off, even if it won’t keep you fascinated straight through.”3
George Martin would go on to produce Stan Getz’s next Verve album, Dynasty (1971), a live set recorded in London with the great European players Eddy Louiss on organ, René Thomas on guitar and Bernard Lubat on drums. Later in the decade, Martin would produce such fusion classics as guitarist John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra album Apocalypse (1974) and guitarist Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow (1975) and Wired (1976).
The thoroughly enjoyable Marrakesh Express turns out to be something of a mixed success: neither as worthy as Getz during these years could be (think Voices or Sweet Rain, both 1967) nor as forgettable or crass as too many of these crossover affairs often were. Kudos to Third Man, which has also issued a limited-edition of Marrakesh Express in yellow vinyl, for rescuing this worthy obscurity.
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