Stan Getz at Storyville—”Thou Swell” (1951)
“Thou Swell” was a show tune composed by two New Yorkers of German Jewish families: Queens-born Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and Harlem-born lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895-1943). They wrote the song in 1927 for the musical “A Connecticut Yankee,” and it soon developed into a classic jazz standard.
Stan Getz-tenor sax; Al Haig-piano; Jimmy Raney-guitar; Teddy Kotich-double bass; “Tiny” Kahn-drums. Recorded live by WMEX-radios station at Storyville, Hotel Buckminster in Kenmore square, Boston, Massachusetts, October 29, 1951.
The Storyville club was run by 26-year old Bostonian proprietor George Wein, later the founder of the New Port Jazz Festival. The now 93-year old Wein was a semi-professional pianist who loved traditional jazz since he was first introduced to it as an 11-year old kid. Fellow Bostonian Nat Hentoff, a jazz deejay at WMEX, came up with the name for Wein’s club, Storyville, called after the old red light district of New Orleans. Wein opened the club in September 1950 with the goal of “playing as many of the jazz greats as possible.”
Hentoff recalled that “When the Stan Getz quintet arrived at George Wein’s Boston “Storyville" club they had been preceded by reports that this was an unusually exciting, stimulating unit. Down Beat’s Jack Tracy had acclaimed its Chicago date and even hypercritical musicians were advising us that this one really wails. As soon as the group hit the stand, it became obvious that music of such extraordinary swing and articulate subtlety should be preserved.” As tapes from Getz -- and Billie Holiday, who was also appearing at Storyville -- were made, Proprietor Wein was excited and later felt that that year “Stan had one of the greatest bands he ever had.”
Stan Getz (1927-1991) was born in Philadelphia. His family name had been shortened from Gayetzsky when his parents emigrated from Russia. His father, who was a tailor, moved the family to New York when Getz was six. The boy’s high school bandmaster recommended him for a scholarship to the Juilliard School, but Getz quit school instead to go on the road. Getz was playing professionally with Jack Teagarden in Los Angeles by the time he was 16. Stan Getz once said “I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection . . . mostly at the expense of everything else in my life.”
When Getz played Storyville in October 1951, tapes were made and from that set a Roost LP was compiled. Live recordings at the time were still a rarity and bringing it out on the then just two years old Long Playing records was extra special. In the album’s liner notes Hentoff recalls how “a few copies of the tapes reached musicians in various parts of the country. Erroll Garner expressed himself in euphoric terms. Dave Brubeck’s altoist, Paul Desmond, played them for a San Francisco club-owner and Getz immediate was asked to play there . . . The fact that the original quintet broke up soon after its Storyville gig makes this collection even more important because, as you’ll hear, consistent communal improvisation of this caliber happens in jazz about as rarely as a triple play in baseball.”
