Chet Baker - Jazz Icon?

[Jazz-in-Aust]

[Nefertiti]

Yes

[Canuck Don]

.If I recall he may not be highly rated on many posters lists in here but high on my list. He is one of my fav.trumpet players.I could honestly say I play something of his at least once a week the last 30 or more years.I only have 38 recordings of his but my goal is to try to get everything he has ever recorded .I doubt very much that I will succeed ,but am trying.I have a lot of fav.and the ones I like I don't rate , fav.1, fav.2 ,etc. Chet Baker,Miles, Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown, Art Farmer ,Donald Byrd.Diz, are all my # 1 fav.

[bluesaway]

I guess you will have the James Gavin biography on Baker "Deep in a Dream...The Long Night of Chet Baker"

If not, it is worth searching for.

[Canuck Don]

I don't have that book .I will have to go into Amazon book site and see if it's there. Thanks for mentioning it.

[grove47]

I have read the 'Deep In A Dream' bio, and while it is intensely unflattering, it doesn't diminish my affinity for Baker's playing or singing. Gavin may have a bead on Baker's character flaws, but I think he oversteps his reach in musical matters. For example, to suggest that Baker is musically lazy and artistically deficient because he is essentially self-taught and plays by ear is severely misguided. There are a number of jazz greats that have little or no formal training. Baker was unique in that he was one of the first significant horn players to emerge out of the bebop and modern jazz period who was largely an autodidact.

In fact, it gave Baker's improvisations a unique authenticity. He can only play what he hears, not what he 'knows'. Musicians faced with this circumstance are often the most honest players, in a way, speaking in a pure language acquired through the 'aural' tradition.

[Lastonein]

Originally Posted by grove47

I have read the 'Deep In A Dream' bio, and while it is intensely unflattering, it doesn't diminish my affinity for Baker's playing or singing. Gavin may have a bead on Baker's character flaws, but I think he oversteps his reach in musical matters. For example, to suggest that Baker is musically lazy and artistically deficient because he is essentially self-taught and plays by ear is severely misguided. There are a number of jazz greats that have little or no formal training. Baker was unique in that he was one of the first significant horn players to emerge out of the bebop and modern jazz period who was largely an autodidact.

In fact, it gave Baker's improvisations a unique authenticity. He can only play what he hears, not what he 'knows'. Musicians faced with this circumstance are often the most honest players, in a way, speaking in a pure language acquired through the 'aural' tradition.

There is a lot of truth in what you say. Any "perspective" has to take into account the period in history the subject matter was active within.
Baker, along with his contemporaries, was often at the frontier.

Overall I think the book makes for an enjoyable and insightful read, and betters a lot of other "jazz" biographies and works of so-called important musical research.

As with all such oppinions, the final judgement on Baker as a musician (or jazz icon - as the thread began) will be decided by what people feel when they listen to his music. Baker had/has his critics but the fact that so much is written and spoken about him, 16 years since he died, does suggest he has a place in the history books.

[Dr Dave]

Chet Baker was far more a figure of romance than a jazz musician, although he was that, too. And God knows, it always paid to have Chet playing on the stereo when you were trying to get laid.

[A. Kingstone]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Chet Baker was far more a figure of romance than a jazz musician, although he was that, too. And God knows, it always paid to have Chet playing on the stereo when you were trying to get laid.

I wish I'd known that. Wagner never got me to first base.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by A. Kingstone

I wish I'd known that. Wagner never got me to first base.

Wagner was just the ticket when I was wooing a Valkyrie.

As far as Chet Baker is concerned, his playing in the 70s & 80s is some of the most lyrical & profound trumpet I know. I go to the earlier recordings mostly for Chet's singing & Russ Freeman's piano.

[Nefertiti]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Chet Baker was far more a figure of romance than a jazz musician, although he was that, too.

Well, that's how most US jazz critics see it. They also dismiss or underrate most of his post-50's music.

But in Europe, Chet is mainly famous for his later music from the 70's and 80's, when he - with his awful junkie looks - was far from being a "figure of romance".

He made dozens of records then, many of them poorly produced, but others had more intense playing and singing than on any of his 50's music. Check his drummerless trio sessions like "Chet's choice", his duos with vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmidt or the late big band recordings from 1988 ("Last concert")

[clinthopson]

Chet Baker had a unique trumpet style and his work in the 50's and 60's was outstanding. He was not the powerhouse player like Diz, Fats, etc. but was probably the most lyrical player I ever heard.

OTOH, I'm not a fan of his singing. In the words of our Governor, der Gropenfuhrer, it's sort of "girly man." Besides that, he's always flat.

[Richardo Caerleoni]

Interesting thread! I've read "Deep in a Dream" and thought it had another "agenda"...i.e. personal, other than the music...which is what really matters.

Listen to the 60's Rome tapes (with Bobby Jasper/Rene Thomas etc.) and Tokyo Concert recordings (late Chet) ...when he wanted to, he could be totally amazing. The problem was ...he didn't want to be . He always needed someone/something to "kick" him into really playing . Philly Joe did it...being off smack sometimes did it...but he didn't want it. His choice... And he never was/would be Kenny Dorham...Gerry Mulligan said, "Some people need drugs to play jazz...Chet needed jazz to get drugs"...about right in my (limited) experience of meeting him.

And his "singing" was tragic...in the true sense of the word. Dinah W. was right!

[Scott Yanow]

I think Chet Baker's trumpet playing, on good days, was at its peak during his last decade. Some of those European recordings are great and display lots of emotion along with a solid control of his horn. His singing was another matter, and I think that declined while in Europe although his scatting could be good in small doses.

Chet Baker is one of jazz's greatest cult figures, along with Stan Kenton and Sun Ra. Was he a better trumpeter than, say, Art Farmer? Probably not, but he had charisma and a certain magic in his best moments.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Originally Posted by Richardo Caerleoni

Dinah W. was right!

I musta missed what she said.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by grove47

I have read the 'Deep In A Dream' bio, and while it is intensely unflattering, it doesn't diminish my affinity for Baker's playing or singing. Gavin may have a bead on Baker's character flaws, but I think he oversteps his reach in musical matters. For example, to suggest that Baker is musically lazy and artistically deficient because he is essentially self-taught and plays by ear is severely misguided. There are a number of jazz greats that have little or no formal training. Baker was unique in that he was one of the first significant horn players to emerge out of the bebop and modern jazz period who was largely an autodidact.

In fact, it gave Baker's improvisations a unique authenticity. He can only play what he hears, not what he 'knows'. Musicians faced with this circumstance are often the most honest players, in a way, speaking in a pure language acquired through the 'aural' tradition.

Interesting point there - but does that last part imply that he was only able to repeat what others had done and not take the music further forward?

So - he was a good player, but not one of the 'greats' who contributed new ideas and directions to Jazz - liek Miles,Coltrane, Parker etc. ... ??

I'm asking what others think here really - rather than making a blanket statement....

[grove47]

If I can take the 'language' analogy a little further, I think that in order to communicate you need to have a common language. The language can be used creatively or simply for utility.

I think Chet had a unique and personal emotional expression through music, which in large part was a gift and in some measure was developed or evolved. Some of that he got from Miles, but Baker had his own experiences to draw from, many of which were tragic circumstances of his own making.

Chet Baker was a conscious artist- interviews I have read indicate that he was a thoughtful musician with strong ideas about his own music and what worked best for him. For example, he talked about the importance of 'listening' and how vital that was to the integrity of the music. I know that might sound like a keen sense of the obvious, but I think active listening on the band stand is not always present, even with the best musicians. It implies a certain vigilance in terms of the appropriateness of certain responses. It also implies a kind of hierachy of musical priorities. The same general aesthetic might apply to the music of Bill Evans, Miles, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Lenny Breau and many others.

[Jazz-in-Aust]

It's funny how everyone on this thread seems to dislike Chet Baker's singing, whereas i rather enjoy listening to his voice. It just sounds so pure to me, but i haven't got a fully developed musical ear just yet, so perhaps in the future i will agree with you all.

I'll have to look that "Deep in a Dream" biography up, it sounds very interesting.

With Chet, i do enjoy listening to his stuff, but i feel he had his expression based purely in ballads. It seems like he was pigeon-holing himself to one genre, one image. He never really explored many other areas which is perhaps why he was never thought as one of the greats.

But I will always think of him as an icon

and Dr Dave is right, it does pay to have him playing when your trying to get laid, which is an achievement i'm sure all jazz musicians are aiming for

[VIBEr]

Originally Posted by Jazz-in-Aust

It's funny how everyone on this thread seems to dislike Chet Baker's singing, whereas i rather enjoy listening to his voice. It just sounds so pure to me, but i haven't got a fully developed musical ear just yet, so perhaps in the future i will agree with you all.

With Chet, i do enjoy listening to his stuff, but i feel he had his expression based purely in ballads. It seems like he was pigeon-holing himself to one genre, one image. He never really explored many other areas which is perhaps why he was never thought as one of the greats.

I'm not sure I would agree that Chet is not thought of as being one of the greats. I would speculate that some jazz educators may disparage his ability for no other reason than to validate Chet's greatness in spite of his lack of musical literacy would invalidiate their collective line of work. I also think that exploring other areas is not an element of an artist's greatness (I'm not inferring that you are saying this in any way).

As far as having a musical ear, I think that if Chet's singing sounds pure to you, then that's all you need to have.

[Richardo Caerleoni]

Originally Posted by Dennis Gonzalez

I musta missed what she said.

Dinah Washington said (on a Downbeat interview) and I quote from memory..."Who is that? Sounds like a girl? Chris Conner...No It's Chet Baker...please turn it off"...please check the quote, but broadly right. Dinah W. could sing . Chet B. could play...Not like Kenny Dorham...but on a good day...hey, OK. And as Gery Mulligan said, "he had amazing ears"...so even tho they hated each other?...not taking anything away from Chet...He was good. And he was also pain in the A.

[A. Kingstone]

I'm not a big Baker fan but I heard a great anecdote of him from Pat Labarbara.

Pat was playing with Chet, I guess a pickup situation and Chet calls All The Things You Are and the guys respond, what key. Chet turns around and goes "uuuhhhh", indicating the starting note and counts it off. The players all scramble and soon find themselves in a remote key. Baker turns around after the first chorus and says "This isn't the key I usually play this".

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Jazz-in-Aust

It's funny how everyone on this thread seems to dislike Chet Baker's singing, whereas i rather enjoy listening to his voice. It just sounds so pure to me, but i haven't got a fully developed musical ear just yet, so perhaps in the future i will agree with you all.

Not everybody. I think Baker was a wonderful singer in his own way, and his hornlike scatting was very different from other scatting, even if Armstrong's was based in his horn playing. The only other singer I've heard scat in a similar fashion is Nancy King.

His later singing can be hard to take due to a combination of the ravages of time, drugs and dentures, but even then his scatting could be compelling.

As a trumpeter he was extremely overrated in the fifties and extremely underrated in the eighties.

[edpack]

I think Chet could have been one of the greats, but he was the world's greatest under-achiever. He had a wonderful talent, and squandered it (and his life). Tragic.

[Jazz-in-Aust]

Originally Posted by Pete C

As a trumpeter he was extremely overrated in the fifties and extremely underrated in the eighties.

I loved Chet's 50's stuff. i'm partial to the cool school era. and sometimes i find his later stuff hard to listen to. but iy all depends on what mood i'm in

[clinthopson]

I have a special feeling for Chetty's playing in the 50's. I caught the Mulligan quartet a couple of times in LA at the Haig.

He wasn't singing those days.

[Lastonein]

Jazz-in-Aust, your impression of Baker only being a "ballad" player would probably be shared by many. My own view is that he was very much coming out of the blues. (much as Marsalis is now). Listen to him play with Art Pepper - also some of the tracks he cut that had Bobby Timmons on piano.

Is there any truth in the rumour that Dr Dave's favorit Baker track is "Let's Get Laid"?

[clinthopson]

My first reaction to Baker's playing was that he was a modern Bix.

I think that has some validity.

[kenny weir]

I am very aware of Baker's Pacific Jazz stuff - I have more than 10 albums, which admittedly overlap.

I should like him, as I am west coast nut; two of my favourite toys at the moment are my recently acquired Complete Nocturne and Stan Kenton Presents Mosaic.

But I just hear a kind of nothingess. If I do enjoy his music, its usually more to do with those around him - as with the Mulligan quartet.

I am about 150 pages into Deep In A Dream. It's a fine book that paints a pretty grim picture. Now that I'm past the bits that chronicle the evolution of the west coast sound, I suspect I'm going to struggle to finish it.

It's certainly not helping me dig Baker's music on a new level.

[Lastonein]

Originally Posted by kenny weir

I am very aware of Baker's Pacific Jazz stuff - I have more than 10 albums, which admittedly overlap.

I should like him, as I am west coast nut; two of my favourite toys at the moment are my recently acquired Complete Nocturne and Stan Kenton Presents Mosaic.

But I just hear a kind of nothingess. If I do enjoy his music, its usually more to do with those around him - as with the Mulligan quartet.

I am about 150 pages into Deep In A Dream. It's a fine book that paints a pretty grim picture. Now that I'm past the bits that chronicle the evolution of the west coast sound, I suspect I'm going to struggle to finish it.

It's certainly not helping me dig Baker's music on a new level.

I not sure there is another level Kenny. Chet Baker was a product of his time and he very much got his 15 minutes of fame based on the changes that were happening around him - not just in music - but in film, politics and, that dreaded word, "celebrity". His talent, notoriety and public appeal all came together and made him worthy of the attention he got. However, I suspect a lot of folks who came to imrovised music more recently would struggle to see why he should be considered a "jazz" icon.

Baker had his sound. It wasn't terribly groundbreaking and certainly not a Miles or Dizzy thing. It was however cool and honest. I'm still thinking it's probably right to keep a place in the jazz history books for him - however short on paragraphs it may eventually turn-out to be.

[Lois Gilbert]

JAZZ NOTES - Getting lost with Chet Baker
Entertainment
Michael Edwards Observer writer
Sunday, December 26, 2004



Mention the phrase, jazz for lovers and almost inevitably, Chet Baker's name will surface at some point in the conversation. Baker's seductively stirring melodies and range on trumpet belie a troubled soul who, despite lavish critical praise, experienced little commercial success and was done in by drug and alcohol addiction.

Born Chesney Henry Baker in Yale, Oklahoma, December 23, 1929, he started to play trumpet while still in his teens as a member of the 298th Army Band. Beginning in 1950, he sat in at countless jam sessions at Bop City and the famed Blackhawk Club in San
Francisco. This period marked his first encounters with the alto sax players Paul Desmond and Charlie Parker.

Indeed, while he is commonly associated with the so-called West Coast or "cool" style of jazz, his musical roots are clearly linked to the classic BeBop pioneered by Parker et al in New York City in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Baker's playing, while moody is a model of economy and inventiveness.

After his final army discharge in 1952, Baker moved to Los Angeles where he participated in some historic recording sessions for the Pacific Jazz label at a club called the Haig and with a group led by (saxophonist) Gerry Mulligan.

This group was to evolve into the famous "piano-less" Gerry Mulligan Quartet. From this point on, the popularity of Chet Baker grew quite fast, quickly garnering him the number one position in popularity polls in Down Beat and Metronome, and winning him many thousands of fans worldwide.

When Mulligan temporarily retired from music in 1953, Baker used the opportunity to form his own quartet. In 1953, that group made the longest European tour yet made by an American jazz band. Originally scheduled for four months, the tour eventually stretched to eight. During this tour, substance abuse assumed tragic proportions with Chet's piano player, Dick Twardzik, 24, dying of an overdose in a Paris hotel. Baker himself soon became hopelessly strung out.

Re-entering society in the fall of 1959, following release from a heroin possession rap, the trumpeter embarked upon yet another extended tour of Europe and probably the bleakest period of his life. Arrests and hospitalisations seemingly followed one upon the other, and the popular magazines of the time had a field day running unflattering exposes on him.

By 1964, he had exhausted even the tolerance of the Europeans and was deported from Germany. His trumpet having been stolen (or perhaps sold), he switched to flugelhorn. He mostly plodded through the remainder of the decade, releasing records for Verve and Pacific that were largely dismissed for their uninspiring arrangements and predominance of rock rhythms.

In 1968, Baker moved to San Francisco and promptly met upon disaster, being mugged by hoodlums who knocked many of his teeth out. Devastated, he stopped playing for two years, but used methadone to control his craving for heroin. He slowly made his way back in 1974 and started to record again.

This time around, the records showed far greater range and authority, in addition to his now trademark lyricism. The following year, he returned to Europe playing on other musicians' records in addition to his own and performing with quartet, trio and duo.

Baker's music even began to crop up in movie soundtracks and favourable references to him (at least to his music), began to abound.
But in May 1988, with his career seemingly about to take off for good, he fell (some insist he may have been pushed) out of his hotel window in Amsterdam.

Later that year, photographer-director Bruce Weber released Let's Get Lost, a documentary featuring interviews with the musician, his mother and other family members and long-time friend Jack Sheldon.

Chet Baker was by many accounts, a troubled individual who lived a life of drugs, compulsive womanising and irresponsibility. But his music, at its best, inspires the sweetest of dreams.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifes...CHET_BAKER.asp