Results for "Chet Baker"

Chet Baker

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. In 1954, Baker won the Downbeat Jazz Poll, beating Miles Davis among others

Take Five with Zvonimir Tot

By AAJ STAFF

Musician Zvonimir Tot: Zvonimir Tot (z-VON-e-mere TOTE) is a jny: Chicago-based jazz guitarist, composer and arranger with a style deeply rooted in the jazz tradition but flavored by his European origin. Tot has performed in the United States, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Macedonia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, South Africa, and Spain. He has performed ...

John Stowell / Dan Dean: Rain Painting

By DAN MCCLENAGHAN

Guitarist John Stowell has spent two decades recording for Seattle's Origin records, collaborating with artists such as saxophonists Dave Liebman and Michael Zilber, drummer John Bishop, bassist Jeff Johnson and guitarist Ulf Bandgren. His work with the band Scenes—with Bishop and Johnson, and (twice) saxophonist Rick Mandyck—is particularly noteworthy. Bassist Dan Dean—with a sparser discography than ...

See Through 4: Permanent Moving Parts

By CHRIS MAY

Composer and bassist Pete Johnston, leader of Toronto's See Through 4, cites Lennie Tristano and Eric Dolphy as primary reference points for the quartet's music. As a listener, you may feel such connections are tenuous. Whatever his strengths, Tristano was not known for playfulness, a quality which runs through Permament Moving Parts. Plus, the contrapuntalism to ...

Meroli: Notturni

By CHRIS MAY

Jazz has a great track record when it comes to film scores. Standouts include Miles Davis' soundtrack for Louis Malle's Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud (1958), Charles Mingus' for John Cassavetes' Shadows (1959) and Krzysztof Komeda's for Roman Polanski's Knife In The Water (1962). There are dozens more, particularly from the 1950s and 1960s, before rock became the ...

Nicola Conte: Good Juju From Italy’s Spiritual Jazz Shaman

By CHRIS MAY

Ever since his debut album, the acid-jazz masterpiece Jet Sounds (Schema), in 2000, the producer, composer, DJ and guitarist Nicola Conte has kept the jazz world guessing by constantly moving the goal posts. The trumpeter Miles Davis famously said, “I always gotta change. It's like a curse." But with Conte, it feels more like a blessing, ...

Archival Finds: Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans and Chet Baker

By JEROME WILSON

Here are three releases of newly discovered material by iconic jazz musicians from the '50s and '60s. Two fall in line with the leaders' established legacies while the third presents its subject in surprising company. The Dave Brubeck Quartet Time OutTakes Brubeck Editions 2020 This CD consists ...

Hal Galper Quintet: Live At The Berlin Philharmonic 1977

By DAN MCCLENAGHAN

It must be gratifying to accomplish everything you set out to do. Pianist Hal Galper says he has done just that. And, after a career that included work with trumpeter Chet Baker and saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and Stan Getz, along with a ten year stint in saxophonist Phil Woods' band (1980-1990), followed by ten years of ...

Mauro Sigura Quartet: Terra Vetro

By CHRIS MAY

Although the Italian oud player and composer Mauro Sigura bills his band as a world-jazz group which combines traditional Ottoman-Mediterranean music with modern European jazz, the band's sophomore album is not full-on, capped-up World Jazz in the manner of, say, fellow oudist Anouar Brahem's Blue Maqams (ECM, 2017). That album, made with double bassist Dave Holland, ...