Results for "Chet Baker"

Chet Baker

Born: December 23, 1929

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. was raised in a musical household in Oklahoma (his father was a guitar player), and coming of age in Southern California during the bebop era of jazz, Baker found success as a trumpet player in 1951 when he was chosen by Charlie Parker to play with him for a series of West Coast engagements.

In 1952, Baker joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which was an instant phenomenon. Baker became famous on the strength of his solo on their recording of "My Funny Valentine" a piece he was later said to "own". The Quartet, however, lasted less than a year because of Mulligan's arrest on drug charges.

Blue Room: The 1979 VARA Studio Sessions In Holland

By Chet Baker

Label: Jazz Detective/Deep Digs/Elemental Music
Released: 2023
Track listing: CD1: Beautiful Black Eyes; Oh, You Crazy Moon; The Best Thing For You; Blue Room; Down; CD2: Blue Gilles; Nardis; Candy; Luscious Lou; My Ideal; Old Devil Moon.

Bill Evans: Ten Essential Sideman Albums

by Chris May
September 19, 2023

Bill Evans attracts a special sort of fan. Clinically obsessive is a reasonable description. While far from undiscerning, we find something, usually plenty, to enjoy in every record Evans played on. And we want them all in our collection. Evans' hardcore fans include practically every musician who played with him. Eddie Gomez, his ...

Fred Hersch: Alive... And Kicking

by Jiaowei Hu
September 6, 2023

Few musicians have shaped jazz with such elegant, instinctive, and intimate variations as Fred Hersch. Constantly. Over four decades, life's ups and downs have not stopped him from coming back, time and again, to performing live. No word other than “alive" can be more suitable for the pianist, and it is no coincidence that he chose ...

The Gerry Mulligan 1950s Quartets

by Ian Patterson
August 15, 2023

The Gerry Mulligan 1950s Quartets Alyn Shipton240 Pages ISBN: 978-0197579763 Oxford University Press 2023 Several are the biographies of Gerry Mulligan, arguably jazz's most celebrated baritone saxophonist. None, however, have focused as specifically and as closely as this tome does on the quartets with which Mulligan made his name ...

Rene Marie at the new Dazzle

by Geoff Anderson
August 14, 2023

Rene Marie Dazzle Denver, Colorado August 4, 2023 It's always a joy when singer Rene Marie comes to town. Friday night was special because she opened the new Dazzle nightclub with two sets and two more on Saturday night. Marie lived in Denver for several years and, as one ...

A Conversation with Joe Chambers

by AAJ Staff
August 1, 2023

This interview was first published at All About Jazz on February 1999. We have always been quite puzzled as to why a musician that has worked alongside Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, Sam Rivers, Wayne Shorter, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Tommy Flanagan, Charles Mingus, and Chick Corea would only ...

Talkin' Square Biz with Arkadia Prez Bob Karcy

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 20, 1997

This interview was first published at All About Jazz in October 1997. This past June, Bob Karcy, President and Founder of the award-winning V.I.E.W. Video company, announced the signings of Dave Liebman, Benny Golson and Billy Taylor to his newly-formed Arkadia Entertainment Corporation. “Just what the world needs, another jazz record label," ...

John Apelgren: Jazz, Resilience, and the Forbidden People

by Nenad Georgievski
June 26, 2023

With a career spanning 30 years in the music scene, John Apelgren can boast experiences like few others. As an integral part of what is called the jazz scene or jazz culture in Macedonia, he has performed with various jazz ensembles, ranging from the old Radio Television Skopje (RTS) Big Band to performances with the new ...

The Pacific Jazz Group: Pacific Jazz Group

by Jack Bowers
June 25, 2023

West Coast jazz from the mid-twentieth century makes a comeback on this earnest album by the Pacific Jazz Group, whose music owes its genesis to the Pacific Jazz label, which recorded many of the Coast's best and brightest stars during that historic and bounteous era. The idea was set in motion by pianist Dred Scott, one ...