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Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Harry Edison
Jazz Giants ‘58

Album 2008 on Lone Hill Jazz label
Jazz (Bop)

This release presents the complete "Jazz Giants '58" album, which is the only recorded testimony of Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan & Harry "Sweet" Edison collaborating together in a recording studio. As a bonus, two long tracks from a 1953 studio session which also included Getz and Edison. Both these sessions were organized by producer-impressario Norman Granz. Total time: 76:06 min. Tracks #1-5 from "Jazz Giants '58" (Verve MGV 8248). Recorded in Hollywood, on August 1, 1957. Tracks #6 taken from "Norman Granz' Jam Session #3" (Clef MGC 653). Tracks #7 taken from "Norman Granz' Jam Session #4" (Clef MGC 654). Recorded in Hollywood, on August 18, 1953. ------------------------------------------------ Notes: -Jazz Giants '58 "Producer Norman Granz (1918-2001) had an uncanny ability to create really amazing jazz albums by experimenting with the combinative chemistry of musical minds, temperaments, and personalities. While not every Granz session resulted in recordings of equal depth or profundity, the number of artistically rewarding, genre-defining albums that came together under his supervision is almost difficult for the human mind to fully comprehend. One fine example is Jazz Giants '58, a Verve album recorded inside the rented Capitol studios in Hollywood, CA on August 1, 1957 and released almost exactly one year later [...] Although it has since come to be identified mainly with Stan Getz, Jazz Giants '58 feels a lot like a Gerry Mulligan session, with Harry "Sweets" Edison perfectly complementing the other two horns. To support and illuminate the trumpet, tenor, and baritone saxes, Granz used his preferred rhythm trio Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, and Ray Brown and added master percussionist Louie Bellson, fully primed after working for his wife Pearl Bailey, his hero Duke Ellington, and with Granz's internationally famous Jazz at the Philharmonic project. This was the blossoming of the great era of long-playing records, and the participants clearly relished the opportunity to stretch out and jam together in a relaxed, intimate studio environment. "Chocolate Sundae," a ten-minute collectively improvised blues of incredible warmth and irresistible texture, is followed by seven- and eight-minute sets of creative variations on a couple of tunes that were in the air during the '50s. The nearly 12-minute manifestation of the patented Norman Granz "Ballad Medley" is especially powerful by virtue of starting out with Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life." An extended romp through the changes of Dizzy Gillespie's "Woody N You" (a tribute to the progressive sensibilities of bandleader Woody Herman penned during the 1940s) adds pure undiluted pleasure to an album that already sounds and feels like some of the best music ever recorded by any of the participants under any circumstances." Arwulf Arwulf -All Music Guide

Musicians

	Stan Getz ts, 1927-1991 US tenor saxophone, album by
	Gerry Mulligan bs, 1927-1996 US bass saxophone, album by
	Harry Edison tr, US album by
	Benny Carter as, 1907-2003 US alto saxophone
	Willie Smith as, sax, 1910-1967 US alto saxophone
	John Simmons b, 1918-1979 US bass
	Ray Brown b, 1926-2002 US bass
	Buddy DeFranco cl, 1923-2014 US clarinet
	Buddy Rich dr, 1917-1987 US drums
	Louis Bellson dr, 1924-2009 IT drums
	Freddie Green g, 1911-1987 US guitar
	Herb Ellis g, 1921-2010 US guitar
	Count Basie p, 1904-1984 US organ
	Arnold Ross p, 1921-2000 US piano
	Oscar Peterson p, 1925-2007 CA piano
	Wardell Gray ts, 1921-1955 US tenor saxophone
	Harry Edison-Teddy Edwards Septet trumpet

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