Stan Getz With Guest Artist Laurindo Almeida (1966)

This one is, if not a lost treasure, certainly a forgotten one among those who love both tenor saxophonist Stan Getz (1927-91) and guitarist Laurindo Almeida (1917-95) alike. It’s also one that really fell between the cracks. I didn’t even remember that I had a copy of this disc until I was asked about it recently.

Produced by Creed Taylor and recorded in March 1963, several days after Getz’s fourth Verve bossa-nova oriented disc, the GRAMMY-winning Getz/Gilberto (1964 – which, of course, featured the GRAMMY winner “The Girl from Ipanema”) and exactly seven months before the with-strings Reflections (also 1964), it stands on its own merits.

But for some reason, Almeida’s pairing with Getz was not released until November 1966, seven months after the release of the live Getz/Gilberto #2. (Other Getz recordings made during this period, such as Stan Getz & Bill Evans [1964, issued 1988] and Nobody Else but Me [1964, issued 1994], were likewise not issued at the time. These likely remained on the shelves to avoid glutting the market with Getz product.)

By this point, however, the bossa-nova wave had pretty much crested. Even Stan Getz was no longer making these sorts of records. But, to be fair, the single greatest record the genre ever produced, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s magisterial and evergreen Wave (1967), was mere months away.

The shame of all this is that Stan Getz With Guest Artist Laurindo Almeida is among the finest of the bossa nova records either leader waxed.

The six-song program is mostly comprised of Laurindo Almeida originals, while the saxophonist and guitarist are also heard covering Luis Antônio’s “Minina Moça (Young Lady),” a 1959 hit for the Brazilian singer Tito Madi, and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s 1954 charmer “Once Again (Outre Vez),” first heard on these shores in 1963 as a vocal by The Hi-Los (with English lyrics by Jon Hendricks and Jessie Cavanaugh) and as an instrumental by pianist Vince Guaraldi.

Almedia originally wrote and performed “Do What You Do, Do” for little-known Argentinian pianist and frequent collaborator Dante Varila’s 1963 LP Cosa Nueve. The disc’s most exciting tracks, “Samba da Sahra” and “Maracatu-Too” (co-written with Getz), are unique to this record and well worth hearing.

Throughout, Getz and Almeida are beautifully accompanied by George Duviver on bass, Edison Machado, Jose Soorez or Dave Bailey on drums, and Luiz Parga and Jose Paulo on percussion. The curiously uncredited (and strangely under-recorded) piano heard on “Minina Moça (Young Lady)” and “Maracatu-Too” is courtesy of none other than Steve Kuhn.  

The sound here (likely the work of engineer Phil Ramone) is, generally, pretty good and, to these ears, much better than Almeida’s Capitol records of the period.

The songs “Minina Moça (Young Lady)” and “Winter Moon” (the latter of which Almeida would reprise on his GRAMMY-winning 1964 album Guitar from Ipanema) were issued as a single in late 1966, but, oddly, neither captured much attention.

“The mutual love affair that exists between jazz and bossa nova,” wrote Harvey Siders in his May 18, 1967, DownBeat review, “is the plot of this album, and each idiom is given considerable opportunity to be heard.”

He continues: “While it is more accurate to say that Getz can swing with an accent similar to Almeida’s than the converse, the rapport between the two is truly remarkable. Their thoughts alternate through a half-dozen jazz sambas, underscored by the sensitive, yet pulsating bass lines of George Duvivier. For the most part, the mood is extremely relaxed. Only in the final number, Maracatu-Too, is any excitement generated by the five-man rhythm section. The rest is tranquility in tandem.”

About the cover: Stan Getz With Guest Artist Laurindo Almedia is about the only cover in Stan Getz’s Verve bossa-nova series of albums that does not feature the work of Puerto Rican abstract expressionist Olga Albizu (1924-2005). (The typography also presents the guitarist’s name in a slightly smaller font size that somehow diminishes his considerable contribution to the record.)

Here, the cover art is provided by artist Alberta Hutchinson (1940-2004). While Hutchinson is best known for her many books, including the pioneering of adult coloring books, Stan Getz With Guest Artist Laurindo Almeida is, strangely, her only known album-cover credit.

Throughout her career, Hutchinson specialized in colorful mandalas, often circular symbols representing the universe, wholeness and the circle of life. Deriving from the Sanskrit word for “circle,” the complex, kaleidoscopic mandala is used as a spiritual tool to guide the mind toward meditation, spiritual awakening and inner peace.

For this record, Hutchinson provided a mandala of the sun in the form of a mosaic – which is especially unusual, compared to much of the other work Hutchinson is known for. The sun is a powerful and sacred symbol in the mandala that primarily represents life, cosmic energy, vitality and the universe at large.

Strangely, the effect has less of a Brazilian flavor and one that’s more Mexican in nature. It’s not unwelcome, but it’s a jolt of an effect (I suppose I am thinking of the country’s most luxurious hotels, which boast such magnificent mosaics).

Somehow, Hutchinson’s art sets this album apart from Getz’s other bossa-nova records, but offers Almeida one of the most beautiful covers bearing his name. Even if it doesn’t scream bossa nova, Alberta Hutchinson’s graphic beautifully suggests the enticing exotica found within.