Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz
by Donald L. Maggin
Category: Biography & Autobiography

Stan Getz's prodigiously prolific musical career encompassed the tumultuous eras of big band, swing, be-bop, and free jazz. Though he is most famous for "The Girl from Ipanema," Getz's extraordinary talent established him in the pantheon of jazz greats. His legendary career is all the more impressive given the excesses of his personal life: He was a heroin addict until age twenty-seven; later, a violent alcoholic. Furiously self-destructive, Getz wasn't expected to outlive the 1950s, yet he continued to create beautiful music for forty more years, achieving sobriety five years before succumbing to cancer in 1991. With rich portraits of both the master and those he influenced--such giants as Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis--Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz masterfully captures a dynamic era in music, with the artistic genius, triumphs, and tragedies of Stan Getz at its center.