Jazz Articles about Chet Baker

Chet Baker: The Last Great Concert

by Dan McClenaghan
August 9, 2004

Trumpeter Chet Baker had his ups and downs. The ups: his groundbreaking work with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet in the early to mid-fifties, followed by dozens of great early recordings under his own name. The downs: his long term involvement with drugs, which took him out of the picture for a stretch in the sixties. He made a successful comeback in the seventies, and by the time the Last Great Concert: My Favorite Songs, Vol. 1 & 2 ...

Chet Baker: Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe

by Jack Bowers
May 22, 2004

There’s some nice blowing on this CD reissue of an album recorded in 1959 by trumpeter Chet Baker and a star-studded supporting cast, but it’s far too sporadic, flutist Herbie Mann’s arrangements are generally uninspiring, and the session is on the whole rather lackluster. In searching for reasons, one that quickly arises is that Baker's celebrated sidekicks—Mann, Zoot Sims, Pepper Adams, a youthful Bill Evans—are largely window-dressing. As an example, “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” is played by a quintet—Baker, ...

Chet Baker: Plays The Best of Lerner & Loewe

by David Rickert
April 21, 2004

Shelly Manne’s album of tunes from My Fair Lady was a huge success, and thus it was a natural move to follow it with other swingin’ Broadway records. Chet Baker was an obvious fit for this type of project, an artist whose handsomeness and fragile playing pegged him as a boyishly romantic interpreter of songs. He found success in the lush textures of Chet by marrying earnest renditions of tunes with a pleasant unassuming approach intended to capture a wider ...

Deep In A Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker by James Gavin

by C. Michael Bailey
March 8, 2004

Deep In A Dream James Gavin Alfred A. Knopf 2002, 430 pages ISBN: 0-679-44287-1 The Heart of Darkness or Die Leiden des jurgen Chet Baker Early in James Gavin's finely crafted biography of the brilliant and troubled trumpeter Chet Baker, the author quotes long-time Baker associate Enrico Pieranunzi opining, “For American people, Chet was just a drug addict...[In Italy] we felt he was a great artist with a great problem. ...

Looking for Chet Baker

by Bob Jacobson
March 8, 2004

Looking for Chet Baker Bill Moody Walker & Co ISBN: 0802733689

Jazz pianist Evan Horne is at it again. An ex-girlfriend says it best: “You and dead jazz musicians. Just can't resist, huh?" From the title it's obvious whose death Horne is investigating this time. In the past it's been cases involving tenor man Wardell Gray, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown. Actually, Evan Horne is not a detective who happens to play ...

As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir

by Victor L. Schermer
March 4, 2004

As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir By Chet Baker St. Martin's Press, 1997 0312167970

Baker, Chet - Chesney Henry Baker. Born Yale, Oklahoma, December 23, 1929. Died Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 13, 1988. Trumpeter and singer.Chet Baker was both an original jazz artist and a cultural icon. His early trumpet playing was (no pun intended) instrumental in establishing the genre of “West Coast Jazz," and he went on to ...

Chet Baker: Chet For Lovers

by Norman Weinstein
October 15, 2003

Of course the title of this newest entry in Verve's “For Lovers" series is redundant. What did trumpeter Chet Baker ever record that wasn't directed to lovers, particularly the jaded variety? This is simply a finely honed compilation of fourteen Baker tunes spaning the fifties and sixties. Crucial are the Paris sessions from 1955, arguably the finest of his career instrumentally. Backed by an unremarkable rhythm section, Baker never sounded as delicately balanced between ecstasy and angst, so resolute and ...