This deep dive explores the life of jazz saxophonist Stan Getz, born in Philadelphia in 1927 to Jewish immigrants who had fled pogroms in the Russian Empire. With only about six months of formal lessons and no training in music theory, he practiced eight hours a day on a $35 alto saxophone his father scraped together money for during the Great Depression, developing the pristine tone that led the jazz world to call him simply "The Sound." He dropped out of high school, was touring with a major bandleader by 16, and by 1952 his recording of "Moonlight in Vermont" made him a pioneer of the cool jazz movement that pushed back against bebop's frantic complexity.

Behind the effortless music was heroin addiction, a 1954 attempted pharmacy robbery in Seattle, and a suicide attempt in his cell. The episode examines how his second wife, Monica, the  ...