Stan Getz/cal Tjader Sextet

There is no guarantee that you can throw a collection of gifted musicians into a studio and emerge at the end of the day or night with a great recording. Plenty of dull all-star jam sessions on record prove otherwise. Sometimes, however, the quick mix-and-match approach works. There are few instances of it's working better than in this encounter between Cal Tjader and Stan Getz. No one could have predicted that the result would be one of the finest albums of both men's careers. The quality of the other participants improved the odds, even though in 1958 none of them was, by any stretch of the term, an all- star. Vince Guaraldi and Eddie Duran had achieved small national reputations, but Scott LaFaro and Billy Higgins were barely known outside of Los Angeles jazz circles. With the uncanny ESP that sometimes operates in meetings of like-minded strangers who happen to be first-rate jazz artists, they coalesced behind Getz and Tjader and worked hand-in-glove with one another. Guaraldi's Ginza and Tjader's 'Liz-Anne have become jazz standards. Remastered with 24-bit technology, this album is a jazz classic in every respect.