Stan Getz on "Yardbird Suite"

Stan Getz and Chet Baker in 1983 — 40 years later!

West Coast Live (1953) is a lesser-known Stan Getz record that features Chet Baker and Getz playing over standards and bebop tunes like "Half Nelson" and "Move" in Los Angeles. During my heavy Stan Getz phase in middle school and high school, I was intensely curious as to how Getz negotiated bebop chord progressions. Of recordings of Getz playing over Bird tunes, I only know of a couple: "Confirmation," from Poetry (1983), a piano-saxophone duo record with Albert Dailey; "Scrapple from the Apple," from Getz Meets Mulligan in Hi-Fi (1957); "Billie's Bounce" with J. J. Johnson on Live at the Opera House (1957); and "Yardbird Suite" on this record. 

There's been an endless amount of writing by critics on "Getz's melodicism" and that sort of jazz journalist-y stuff, so I'll stay off that point, except to point out that if there are major attributes to Getz's playing that make his solos stand out as exceptionally melodic—even in extremely up-tempo situations—these might be the following: clean, logical phrases that have a natural direction to them; melodic shapes that are mostly scalar or arpeggio-based, rather than excessively chromatic; and a sense of continual motific development. Getz did play many lines, but he also broke up these lines in solos with brief episodic motifs that he'd develop until they'd lead him in another direction. 

This particular recording is noteworthy because Getz is playing trio as he solos without a pianist; Carson Smith (bass) and Larry Bunker (drums) are backing him, but Getz outlines the changes especially clearly in this solo. Here's the solo:

And take a listen: