The Legendary Sessions of Bill Evans & Chet Baker, recorded in 1959 New York.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
#ChetBaker 's "Baby Breeze,"
At JazzWax, Chet Baker's "Baby Breeze," a 1965 album with remarkable originals and playing by pianist Hal Galper... https://t.co/gVfdVjj1Gb pic.twitter.com/zMw7HnMUbY— Marc Myers (@JazzWax) 7 de novembro de 2017
Bill Evans & Chet Baker - The Legendary Sessions
The Legendary Sessions of Bill Evans & Chet Baker recorded in 1959 New York.
Friday, December 16, 2016
#ChetBaker with #EnricoPieranunzi
Chet Baker with Enrico Pieranunzi - Night Bird https://t.co/gWdoOehG6s #cazhareketi #jazzmusic #jazz #HappyBirthday #EnricoPieranunzi— Görkem Yaşar (@Gorkem_Yasar) 5 de dezembro de 2016
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Saturday, August 27, 2016
#BillEvans & #ChetBaker - The Legendary Sessions
I added a video to a @YouTube playlist https://t.co/GCNIdsTYQq Bill Evans & Chet Baker - The Legendary Sessions (1959 Album)— jazzbreak (@JazzBreak1) August 27, 2016
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Chet Baker
Chet Baker – The tragic hero I was proud to meet #Jazz https://t.co/xyZd6MC1Xx pic.twitter.com/GHgAkfv2Uu— Mark W. (@TMITGS) August 2, 2016
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Monday, August 17, 2015
Chet Baker: The Final Days
In keeping with tradition, I'm ending the week with a video—a Dutch documentary on Chet Baker's final days in Amsterdam directed by Willem Ouwerkerk. While the film doesn't have the drama or humidity of Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost (1988), it's a fascinating and highly informative companion piece that is rich in poetry and blues. Baker died in May 1988 after falling from his Amsterdam hotel room. Here's Chet Baker: The Final Days (1990), which aired in the Netherlands in the early 1990s...
A special JazzWax thanks to Jim Eigo of Jazz Promo Services.
Used with permission by Marc Myers
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Monday, November 4, 2013
Chet Baker & Bill Evans, The Complete Legendary Sessions
Chet Baker & Bill Evans 1959, The Complete Legendary Sessions (2010)
01. Alone Together
02. How High The Moon
03. It Never Entered My Mind
04. 'Tis Autumn
05. If You Could See Me Now
06. September Song
07. You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
08. Time On My Hands
09. You And The Night And The Music
10. Early Morning Mood
11. Show Me
12. I Talk To The Tree
13. Thank Heaven For Little Girls
14. I Could Have Danced All Night
15. Almost Like Being In Love (*bonus track )
Chesney (Chet) Baker (1929-1988), músico estadounidense de jazz, que tuvo similitudes entre el tono tan hermoso y natural de tocar la trompeta y tener un oído bastante agudo. Un trompetista que fue muy carismático de joven por su físico y sus baladas, descubierto en 1952 a nivel más popular, cuando tocaba con el saxofonista Gerry Mulligan. En 1953 formó su propio cuarteto en el tocaba la trompeta y cantaba, innovando ambas cosas con la misma suavidad y brillantez que le caracterizaban.
Bill Evans (1929-1980), también un jazzman estadounidense y compositor, que destaca por su finura, delicadeza, exquisitez y sobriedad, tocando el piano en maravillosas baladas y temas bop, con unos solos absolutamente perfectos, en 1957 sacó su primer disco, siendo casi un desconocido, hasta que Miles Davis le ofreció tocar en su quinteto, aunque estuvo menos de un año y después formó su propio trío... en definitiva, un pianista extraordinario con luz propia.
Músicos, tracks1-10
Chet Baker, trompeta
Bill Evans, piano
Herbie Mann, flauta
Kenny Burrell, guitarra
Paul Chambers, bajo
Philly Joe Jones, batería
Pepper Adams, saxo barítono
Connie Kay or Philly Joe Jones, batería
Músicos, tracks 11-14
Chet Baker, trompeta
Bill Evans, piano
Herbie Mann, flauta
Earl May, bajo
Zoot Sims, saxo tenor y alto
Pepper Adams, saxo baritono
Clifford Jarvis, bateria
15.* bonus track, personal 10-13 excepto Bob Corwin, que reemplaza a Bill Evans
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73oSZ_6PE_Y
Friday, July 19, 2013
Music Review: Chet Baker - 'Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe'
More than likely the 1959 Riverside album Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe, newly remastered for a Concord re-release, was an attempt to capitalize on the critical and commercial success Shelley Manneand Andre Previn had with the Broadway-jazz marriage in their 1956 version of My Fair Lady. Show tunes were popular and there was hardly a jazz musician around who wasn't willing to take advantage of that popularity.
Baker, as James Rozzi explains in the booklet notes that accompany the disc, had been in something of a decline. His growing drug addiction had begun to take over and most critics felt his playing had suffered. He had just been released from four months in Riker's Island for drug possession and he had lost his cabaret card so he could no longer perform in New York. Still, if this was not the musician at the height of his career, it is hard to tell from the music. His life may have been a mess, but the music is clean and accessible.
Joined by a stellar cast of musical accomplices, Baker does some elegant work with ballads fromMy Fair Lady, Brigadoon, and Paint Your Wagon, and he doesn't do too badly with some of the uptempo tunes for that matter. When you're working with the likes of Bill Evans on piano,Herbie Mann on flute, piccolo and tenor sax, Pepper Adams on baritone sax, as well as saxophonist Zoot Sims, cream rises to the top and Baker manages to rise to the occasion.
Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Music-Review-Chet-Baker-Chet-Baker-Plays-the-4665050.php
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
Funny Valentine: The Story of Chet Baker
Funny Valentine: The Story of Chet Baker
Matthew Ruddick , 828 pages, softback
By CHRIS MAY, Published: July 30, 2012
Grippingly written and meticulously researched, Matthew Ruddick's 828-page opus is the definitive biography of trumpeter and singer Chet Baker. More than that, it is a vivid account of the junkie subculture that ran through mid-to-late 20th century jazz, as seen through the incident-packed life of one of its most spectacular participants. The book combines some of the best qualities of saxophonist Art Pepper's unflinching autobiography,Straight Life (Schirmer Books, 1979), and Ian Carr's scholarly musical biography Miles Davis (Quartet, 1982). It is a compelling and authoritative page-turner in the highest rank of jazz biographies.
Baker, born in 1929, found fame early, in 1952, as a member of baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's piano-less quartet. The affecting romanticism of Baker's trumpet playing was matched by his movie star good looks, and when, in 1954, his record company discovered he was also a proficient ballad singer, his future looked assured. But during the second half of the decade, Baker became a slave to heroin, effectively sabotaging his progress; other than during periods in jail, first in the US, later in Europe, he continued to use heroin and its various substitutes until his death in 1988, when he fell out of an Amsterdam hotel window. From 1959, Baker spent much of his time living in or making extended tours of Europe, and his mid-1970s US "comeback" was shortlived. But he could still, intermittently, turn the magic on: the 1987 album Chet Baker in Tokyo(Evidence)—which was recorded on methadone rather than heroin to avoid falling foul of Japan's strict drug laws—is amongst the best he ever recorded.
Read more: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=42587#.UZCj25XhEhQ
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Chet Baker: Germany, 1956
Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
In March 1956, Chet Baker was touring in Germany when he was paired with singer-guitarist Caterina Valente. For those of you unfamiliar with Valente, she was born in Paris to Italian parents and would become a pop sensation in the '60s with her ability to record flawlessly in about a dozen languages. Which is why she was in Germany.
In other words, Valente was a record company's dream, especially when a label wanted the same song in multiple languages for sale in those markets.
Sadly, combining Baker with Valente in a Baden-Baden studio was a bit of a mismatch. What may have seemed smart on paper came off rather disjointed when the two tracks they recorded were finished—I'll Remember April and Everytime We Say Goodbye.
Baker, of course, was about lyricism and patience whereas Valente's intonation on this date lacked the proper warmth and care. And based on their facial expressions listening back in the photo at top, they seem to know it.
A big thanks to JazzWax reader Anthony Middleton in London for sending along the rare photo at top. [Photo by Dimbley]
* Used with permission by Marc Myers
Here's I'll Remember April...
* Used with permission by Marc Myers
Here's I'll Remember April...
And here's Everytime We Say Goodbye...
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Chet Baker: His Life and Music
Chet Baker: His Life and MusicJeroen de Valk
Paperback; 296 pages
ISBN: 189316313
Berkeley Hills Books
2000
The legacy of jazz trumpeter/vocalist Chet Baker, particularly that developed after 1980, has largely evaded detailed analysis. In the 25 years since Baker's death, following a fall from an Amsterdam hotel window, May 13, 1988, a clearer picture of the artist has emerged in the form of two excellent, yet whole disparate biographies, James Gavin's Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker (Knopf, 2002) and Jeroen de Valk's earlier Chet Baker: His Life and Music (Berkeley Hill Books, 1989, revised 2000).
Much ink has been spilled supporting the "more balanced treatment" of de Valk and denigrating the "hateful" Gavin account. If telling the truth is "hateful," then Gavin is guilty as charged. What he cannot be held responsible for was the train-wreck-of-a-life Baker led, providing the subject matter for the biography: every promise broken, every responsibility not met. This is a case where these two biographies together tell a more complete story than either separately.
Much ink has been spilled supporting the "more balanced treatment" of de Valk and denigrating the "hateful" Gavin account. If telling the truth is "hateful," then Gavin is guilty as charged. What he cannot be held responsible for was the train-wreck-of-a-life Baker led, providing the subject matter for the biography: every promise broken, every responsibility not met. This is a case where these two biographies together tell a more complete story than either separately.
De Valk's book has a considerably different focus than Gavin's, whose was necessarily social observation and commentary oddly detached from larger movements in art. Where Gavin focused on what William H. Burrough's referred to as "the algebra of need," laying bare the logistics of heroin addiction, De Valk instead honed in on the specific recording landmarks, in their environs, produced by Baker from the wasteland of his addiction. Valk dwells less on the nitty-gritty of Baker's addictive behavior and more on the afflicted artist, who had more bad days than good, but when good, was sublime.
De Valk is reverent of his subject, possessing the characteristic European view of Baker (as well as many other expatriate jazz musicians) as a very great artist with a very great problem. His attention to Baker's discography is a welcome addition to the Baker bibliography. De Valk provides two chapters devoted to "a selected discography" of essential or near-essential recordings for the Baker-phile. In the following chapter, the author addresses Baker's entire catalog, replete with one-to-five star ratings. These chapters go a long way to bringing order to a discography as confused and confounding as its subject's life.
Where de Falk fails in this biography is as Baker's apologist. There is too much discussion of emotional intensity in Baker's playing and singing alongside such observations as, "Chet expresses himself within the limits of a restricted emotional span. It is a theater, from which all passions are banished, an art with a prohibition of all vibrant colors..." It is a bit had to reconcile the two, and in fact, no reconciliation is necessary.
Baker played and sang as he played and sang, sometimes very well, worthy of all the attention he continues to receive. But more often, particularly from his comeback until his death, he was merely mediocre, if not downright bad. Baker spent a life flying under the radar culturally, thereby defining his subculture, where he became what he lived, a cliched icon, the poster-child of the jazz life years after it ceased to be stylish to be so.
Baker played and sang as he played and sang, sometimes very well, worthy of all the attention he continues to receive. But more often, particularly from his comeback until his death, he was merely mediocre, if not downright bad. Baker spent a life flying under the radar culturally, thereby defining his subculture, where he became what he lived, a cliched icon, the poster-child of the jazz life years after it ceased to be stylish to be so.
In the final Chapter, entitled "Quite a Regular Guy," de Valk quotes Italian photographer Cecco Maino:
"We cannot judge Chet's behavior with normal human values. He lived his own life in his own world. He didn't consider his junkie life a tragedy: he injected heroin the way we would drink a cup of coffee...as long as he could play his trumpet and have his heroin, Chet was happy. His only tragedy was a loud drummer, or a pianist who was too personal. He didn't care about anything else: parents wives, girlfriends and friends came after the above two essentials..."
Quite a regular guy?
This is so much of that beautifully European Romantic nonsense that elevated Baker to the status of sacred ruins. "He lived only for his art...all else was collateral damage." It is the total ignorance of this collateral damage, even to those willing to enable Baker, that proves this otherwise engaging biography's major shortcoming. It borders on the cult of personality. It is particularly insulting to read the circumstances surrounding the financing of Baker's funeral by director Bruce Weber, noting that Baker's family did essentially nothing, and ultimately faulting them for it. The author and those interviewed were never on the dirty end of Baker's stick of neglect as his family was.
De Valk's biography remains essential for the author's keen criticism of Baker's many recordings, as well as, identifying the best of Baker's late recordings. Chet Baker will remain that clouded figure, defying on every front any attempt to capture his legacy in prose. The greatest tribute to Baker is that his life and music continue to spark much pathos and analyses.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
2010 – The Complete Legendary Sessions - Chet Baker & Bill Evans
At night we arrested Gerry and I were driven back home. Gerry but I went down with straps to the back of the house and confusedly gave them the evidence they sought. Until then could only charge him because of the surge marks. We were booked, detained for an hour and finally released on bail - except Gerry. We claim innocence at trial and won - except Gerry. It looked like he was there and a sudden was gone. Have not seen for six months.
He never tried to contact me or wrote a single letter from prison there. Although using heroin, Gerry did not fail to successfully manage their music and their small group was fine. The sound we made was too good some nights, a completely different sound, without the piano. We recorded several albums during the season at Haig Mulligan Quartet: many for Pacific Jazz and one or two for the Fantasy. In retrospect it seems incredible that we have been together so long. Gerry won first place in the referendum in Down Beat and Metronome, the category of barite sax and me on trumpet when he was gone. Then I began to be leader of the band, making music director Russ Freeman and Bob Neel hired to play drums.
Chico on the left to form his own group, but were Larry Bunker on drums and Carson on bass. We recorded some LPs for Pacific Jazz: Instrumental quartet. With vocal quartet, vocals Russ Freeman, Shelly Manne and strings. We introduce ourselves as a sextet with Shelly, Russ, Brookmeyer and Bud Shank as octet - with those already mentioned, but Jack Montrose and Bob Gordon. I recorded an album for Columbia (arranged by Rogers and Marty Paich Garden) with Zoot Sims, Bud Shank, Shelly, and Russ Mendragon with the strings produced by George Avakian for Dick Bock. Dick Bock is one of the best subject I found this business since I started playing for over thirty-five years.
One afternoon, six months after those events, was going down to Hollywood Boulevard and saw Gerry and Arlene Brown. I did not like her astral face. It seems that Gerry was divorcing Jeffie and planned to marry Arlene - which to me was like heaven in a second and the next second, in hell. Arlene was a petite Jewish woman - was not attractive and gave the impression he would get fat soon. of course I did not know what was going on in her head. Gerry must have given something he needed, but thinking only in term physical, Jeffie was sweet and beautiful, while Arlene was a nuisance.
We talked right there on the street for a few minutes and ended up saying she wanted to work with Gerry again - the club, concerts, no matter where and how - but it required three hundred dollars a week. "Not much money in the current circumstances" - spliced. The two started laughing thinking it was too much money. I said goodbye to Gerry and wished him good luck and sent me. Only after some time I saw him again.
Complete on >> http://borboletasdejade.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-complete-legendary-sessions-chet.html
Monday, November 29, 2010
Chet Baker: Sesjun Radio Shows
Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
Chet Baker's recording career divides neatly into two broad categories: 
A notorious heroin abuser, the trumpeter had no fixed address from 1978 until his death from a hotel balcony tumble in 1988. 
By the early '80s, the tormented Baker seemed to have found a compassionate audience in the Dutch, particularly among those who loved jazz and appreciated his vital contribution. Rich in its own art history, Holland completely understood his demons, brooding depression and creative thrashing.
While in the Netherlands, Baker performed regularly on a live radio show called Tros Sesjun, 
The shows often were aired from jazz clubs in Laren, a town 30 minutes from Amsterdam. The first set from these clubs typically was recorded professionally while the second went out over the air live to listeners.
The Sesjun Radio Shows CDs cover five different sets at three different clubs from 1976 to 1985. Both CDs, from start to 
On these dates, Baker was recorded with five different 
And then there's Baker with flutist 
Whatever you think of Baker's later period, the odds are you've misjudged him. But don't feel bad. Too much sub-par 
The Sesjun Radio Shows should go far to clearing up most people's perceptions of Baker's ability to perform, deliver and innovate during the last years of his messy life.
http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/11/chet-baker-sesjun-radio-shows.html
Used with permission by Marc Myers
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