Stan Getz (1927 – 1991)

Beginnings…

Stan Getz was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Feb. 2, 1927. He had one brother, Robert, who was born on October 30, 1932. His parents had come from the Kiev area in the UkraineStan Getz as a child in 1903, tired and fearful of the Pogroms. The Getz family had first settled in West Philadelphia, but moved to New York City after Stan’s fraternal uncle told them there were better jobs in New York. They lived first on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and then moved up to the East Bronx.

Stan’s father had many jobs, but he wasn’t aggressive by nature and was thus often unemployed. Stan’s mother was a more demanding person and pushed her first son hard to study. She hoped he would become a doctor or a professor and took extra care of him, setting straight “A” standards for his schoolwork. Stan worked hard in school. During hot Bronx summers, Stan developed a love for swimming at Crotona Park. At this same park, he sold sunflower seeds in two-cent packets that he had purchased in bulk. Stan had his Bar Mitzvah in 1940. Neither Stan nor Robert had much spiritual grounding. Between them, they would have four wives and seven children, none of whom were raised Jewish.

Stan finished 6th grade near the top of his class and was accepted into an accelerated program where he would combine 7th and 8th grades into one academic year. He was attracted to musical instruments, and he pestered people until he could try whatever instrument came within his view. He was playing the harmonica by age 12 and bass in Jr. High School. Early indications off his innate talent became apparent with his ability to play new tunes he would hear- picking them out on the piano or his harmonica. He conducted a fantasy opera orchestra in front of the radio. He would hum all of the famous Benny Goodman clarinet solos from memory. As he studied music, he was instantly good at sight-reading and seemed to have a photographic memory, as well as an instinctive sense of pitch and rhythm.

On February 16, 1940, his Dad bought him a $35.00 alto saxophone. Stan was 13. He moved on quickly to play Stan Getz and the neighbourhood-bandall of the saxophones, as well as the clarinet, but he really loved the sound of the tenor saxophone. “In my neighborhood my choice was: be a bum or escape. So I became a music kid, practicing eight hours a day. I was a withdrawn, hypersensitive kid. I would practice the saxophone in the bathroom, and the tenements were so close together that someone from across the alleyway would yell, ‘Shut that kid up’, and my mother would shout back, ‘Play louder, Stanley, play louder’.” He mooched quarters off of his Mom so that he could take saxophone lessons every week from an excellent local teacher named Bill Sheiner. He even took up playing bassoon in the school band.

Although Stan was economically poor compared to most of the other kids at school, his mother dressed him smartly to cover for him as best she could. He became a clotheshorse for life at a young age. In a business built on image, this didn’t hurt him at all. At 14, he worked the summer in the Catskills as a busboy, musician and shy emcee for shows. He hated talking before an audience.

In September of 1941 Stan was accepted into the All City High School Orchestra of New York City. Entrance into this select group gave him access to a private, free tutor from the New York Philharmonic, Simon Kovar – a bassoonist. He also began to play local gigs at this time: fraternity parties, bar mitzvahs, Saturday night dances. They paid about three bucks a night. At 14 he had saved enough to buy a tenor sax.

Four months into gigging, he met trumpeter Shorty Rogers on the bandstand one night. Stan knocked him out by playing famous jazz solos by Lester Young and Tex Beneke perfectly and reading charts flawlessly and fast. He started going to jam sessions after gigs ended. Getz later explained his gift: “It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn the sentences, which are the chords, and then you talk extemporaneously with the horn. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to speak extemporaneously, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. But musically, I love to talk off the top of my head. And that’s what jazz music is all about.”

Encouraged by older musicians in local bands who recognized his talent, Stan was hired by house bandleader Dick Rogers to play at Roseland for thirty-five dollars a week in December of 1942. His grades began to drop as he worked more, and soon Stan droped out of high school. The school system’s truancy officers served bandleader Rogers with papers. Stan was sent back to the classroom, but by now it was pointless. Stan already knew what he wanted to do and how to make a living doing it. On January 14, 1943, he joined the Musician’s Local 802 in New York. He told other musicians he’s available to play now. A friend recommended famous trombone player Jack Teagarden’s band. Stan hung out at the rehearsal hall and auditioned for the band. The war draft was draining a lot of bands, and Teagarden knew Stan was not draft age yet. Stan sat in, read the charts perfectly and was offered $70.00 a week. He was told to pack his things and be ready to leave with the band for Boston the next morning.

He returned home to the Bronx tenement expecting an argument about going on the road, but his mother was out and his Dad surprised him. “Go!” his father told him emphatically. “Christ! Stan, seventy bucks a week! I can’t make that in two weeks. And I haven’t had a job in a month anyway.”

Leaving home, for the road…

Stan began touring with the Teagarden band, but in St. Louis truant officers again caught up with him. Jack was told that if the kid was going to continue to work with him in the band, “T” must become his guardian in order to see that Stan completed his schoolwork once a week. Stan’s parents agreed to the arrangement. “He [Teagarden] taught me a lot about bending my right elbow” – this was how Getz put it to a reporter later on. “In my early years, working with Jack Teagarden had the most effect on me. That was a very good introduction to professional music to me. Teagarden was a great musician. His playing is timeless – and it’s logical.” Working in the Teagarden band was tough. The one-nighters never ended.

By nature, Getz possessed an extremely addictive personality type. At 15 he took up smoking cigarettes at the rate of a pack a day for the rest of his life. He also discovered that alcohol helped lower his anxiety, so each night he was getting drunk. His male role models at this stage of his life were a father who had deferred to Stan’s musical money making options and a famous guardian with a non-stop drinking habit. Stan appreciated the happiness soloing on his saxophone brought him. Soloing was like getting high, and he wanted to repeat the feeling each night on the stand.

Stan’s days with the Teagarden band ended in 1944 when he was seventeen. The band was in California, and Stan wanted to stay there. The local union told him he could not work in a steady paying gig for 90 days. He took the only job of his life outside of music, selling men’s clothes in a store. He played one-nighters to supplement this. He sent for his parents and brother to come out and join him, and they lived in one room.

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