Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto
Getz - Gilberto #2

Vintage covers for this album are hard to find in exceptionally clean shape. Most of the will have at least some amount of ringwear, seam wear and edge wear. We guarantee that the cover we supply with this Hot Stamper is at least VG

This vintage Verve pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to "see" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides of Getz - Gilberto #2 Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1964
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Getz Is the Man

Stan Getz is a truly great tenor saxophonist, the cool school’s most popular player. Over the years we have invested an insane amount of time and money in our search for Hot Stamper copies of this and other Getz albums.

We rarely have much to show for our efforts -- certainly not in terms of quantity, as years can go by without a single record of his on the site -- but we do have this copy, and it is killer.

These two sides can show you how lovely this music sounds when you stumble upon a copy that's not poorly mastered or ruined by noisy vinyl.

What We're Listening For on Getz - Gilberto #2

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• The Big Sound comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight, full-bodied bass -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

The Odds Are Stacked

This is an All-Time Jazz Classic and it's a cryin' shame that we can't find more copies. Most are in mono, upwards of 80% of them, and we simply do not care for the sound of this music in mono. If you want to experience a live recording properly, you need space, ambiance, and imaging, three things mono does not do well.

And nine out of ten copies we see are simply not in the condition most audiophiles would find acceptable. Multiply 20% (the stereo copies) by 10% (the decent copies) and you're left with a pool of 2% -- one out of fifty -- to pick from in order to acquire enough copies with which to do a shootout. Ouch.

Those are so pretty long odds, and they go a long way toward explaining why this is only the second Hot Stamper pressing of this title to hit the site in years.

If you love this Brazilian-flavored cool jazz as much as we do, you might want to snap this one up. Who knows when we'll find another one?

Vinyl Condition

Mint Minus Minus and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)

Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.

If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.

Side One

• Grandfather's Waltz
• Tonight I Shall Sleep With A Smile On My Face
• Stan's Blues
• Here's That Rainy Day

Side Two

• Samba Da Minha Terra
• Rosa Moreno
• Um Abraco No Bonfa
• Bim Bom
• Meditation
• O Pato (The Duck)

AMG 4 Star Review

Justifiably overshadowed by the peerless Getz/Gilberto album (which featured "Girl from Ipanema") from a year before, Getz/Gilberto #2 still holds its own with an appealing selection of fine jazz and Bossa Nova cuts.

Unlike the first album's seamless collaboration by Getz, João Gilberto, Astrud Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, here Getz and João Gilberto turn in separate sets recorded live at Carnegie Hall in October of 1964. Backed by a stellar quartet comprised of vibraphonist Gary Burton, bassist Gene Cherico, and drummer Joe Hunt, Getz turns in a sparkling performance on the seldom covered ballad "Tonight I'll Shall Sleep with a Smile on My Face," while stretching out nicely on his original blues swinger "Stan's Blues."

With the support of bassist Keeter Betts and drummer Helcio Milito, Gilberto displays his subtle vocal and guitar talents on a set of bossa nova favorites, including his own "Bim Bom" and Jobim's "Meditation."