Stan Getz performing at "The Pete Candoli Tribute, 1990"

A tribute dinner was given on October 1, 1990 for Pete Candoli at the Sportmans Lodge. There were over 250 people there to honor Pete. Stan Getz (a good friend to Pete) played "Blood Count" by Billy Strayhorn. Jack Sheldon, Conte Candoli, Shorty Rodgers, Hank Mancini, Chubby Jackson, and so many more were there to honor him. This is the excerpt of Stan Getz. The camera is shakey, but the music is there.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Stan
• Getz
• Pete
• Candoli
• Ross
• Thompkins
• Jack
• Sheldon
• jazz

[SeattleGrant]

Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on 9-19-2009 about how this 1990 Stan Getz performance of Blood Count is especially haunting because he knew he was dying of cancer. (He died of liver cancer in June 1991.) The Wall Street Journal pointed its readers to Youtube to see this clip. Kind of cool.

Same article said that Blood Count was itself a deathbed composition, as composer Billy Strayhorn was near death when he wrote it.

[Visionsla]

Stan was asked to perform "Bloodcount" for Pete, and was happy to do it. I asked him, and he said he would...they were old friends.... Pete was so moved by the piece....isoooooo beautiful, the most poignant interpretation I had ever heard....something not to ever forget. I believe he went to Europe after for a quick performance as this was one of his last. He died the following year. Here it is for others to see and enjoy...I will try and find the article, thanks for the comment.

[jfury76]

Magnificent. First time I watched this I got misty also. What a talent to be able to play THAT WELL considering just how sick he was.

[dancerdown0910]

Greatness!!!!!

[quelneuf]

A true gentle-man. Where ever your at, we love ya man.

[slideharp1]

SG is playing just great....lovely rich big-band sound, too

[pekoe67]

@Visionsla

as you wrote: 'the music is there."

[27Mont]

Thank you! Here's some of that WSJ article:

"No less awesome were the performances of Billy Strayhorn's 'Blood Count' that the great jazz saxophonist Stan Getz gave when he was dying of cancer, one of which was filmed and can be viewed on YouTube. 'Blood Count' is itself a miniature deathbed masterpiece, a dark minor-key ballad written at the very end of Strayhorn's own life, and Getz played it with a keening desperation that speaks with terrible eloquence of that which was to come...."

[fullofbl1ss]

damn, man. damn.

[josephmiller44]

Shakey camera or not ... this is brilliant... getting into a unique one of a kind concert.... to which only a select few were invited... Thank you for letting us hear and see this... Brilliant... made me cry.. Joe