Getting Lost: "Best Of" Chet Baker

Chet Baker is shockingly a recent acquisition in my growing jazz library. I've never been impressed very much by his trumpet playing or some of his associates, although there is an understated charm that is perfect for ballads. For me, Chet Baker's approach to vocal jazz is what I appreciate. Baker has this unique voice and phrasing, often a little behind the beat (Billie Holiday, much?), which I find entertaining and perfect for slow evenings. Baker's full of emotion and unafraid of being sentimental or passionate. The longing in his voice is always there, even in his later years when his singing lost some of its range. Like Sathima Bea Benjamin, another jazz vocalist I adore, Baker never forgets to emote and play with words. Furthermore, he could translate trite material like "My Buddy" into a delightful work of art, a pattern established by Billie Holiday and other vocal jazz greats. 

1. It's Always You is a highlight from Chet Baker Sings, one of my favorite recordings where Baker's rookie yet irresistible vocals possess a youthful exuberance that is somehow restrained, much like his trumpet solo on the record.

2. My Ideal features a Russ Freeman on celeste. Freeman was a perfect accompanist to Chet Baker's singing. This is the kind of ballad that found its way in Cowboy Bebop of all things, and my favorite use of celeste in jazz besides Monk's "Pannonica". Baker is full of emotion and longing, but not cheesy, which is often hard to pull off.

3.  Time After Time is another example of Baker at his zenith, in the 1950s and 1960s. The way Baker sings the chorus gives me goosebumps. Even when hitting the high notes Baker is subtle and relaxed.

4. But Not For Me may be my favorite of Baker's vocals. His delivery of the chorus is so upbeat and playful it's a contradictory fit for the song's depressing title.

5. There Will Never Be Another You begins excellently with Baker's trumpet introduction and is an example of his instrumental side of the equation balancing quite well with his singing. When he did not try to transcend his limitations, Baker's shortcomings as a trumpeter don't bother me.

6. I Fall In Love Too Easily brings to mind Billie Holiday's best work in the vein of Songs for Distingué Lovers, sometimes even sounding like a young Holiday singing "Gloomy Sunday". Another lament from Baker's trumpet and Freeman's brief and graceful solo is enough for three minutes of bliss despite the song's somber theme. Russ Freeman is no Mal Waldron or Teddy Wilson, but he gets the job done.

7. Let's Get Lost in each other's arms. Let's defrost in a romantic mist. The silly lyrics are a standout here.

8. Long Ago and Far Away is simple, swinging fun.

9. I Wish I Knew is the only song I can stomach by Chet Baker singing with strings. Like Billie Holiday or Dinah Washington, I usually despise vocal jazz with strings, but the lush soundscape Baker's vocals are accompanied by do not overwhelm.

10. You're Driving Me Crazy alternates between annoying and endearing but somehow works in spite of Baker's wailing-like tone.

11. It Could Happen To You is the only vocal version of this standard I enjoy. I prefer Ryo Fukui's piano trio recording or Bud Powell's recording from the early 1950s, but Baker slows things down to emote in his utterly unique way. Miraculously, even Baker's scatting is delightful.

12. My Heart Stood Still  features an excellent piano solo from Kenny Drew that begins with a quote of a famous blues by Charlie Parker.

13. How Long Has This Been Going On is drenched in the blues. Kenny Drew's accompaniment makes this, while Baker's attempt to sing in a blues-like style works when he doesn't try too hard. Young Dannie Richmond's quiet drumming is the glue holding this together quite well.

14. Old Devil Moon features Baker singing over a Latin beat. What more do you need? It's not the same as Dinah Washington singing over a Latin-ish rendition of "Love For Sale" but still interesting. I believe this is the standard quoted in Butch Warren's bass solo on "Lost" from A Fickle Sonance.

15. Maid in Mexico for more Baker fun with Latin rhythms. Russ Freeman's composition sounds more like a trip to Cuba or New Orleans than Mexico, but actually holds up to some of the Latin-inspired songs of the bebop era. Musicians like Denzil Best come to mind.

16. The Thrill Is Gone should be required listening for night owls. This is the end, indeed!

17.  I Get Along Without You Very Well is late Baker, but still gold. Like Billie Holiday in her later years, the pain of Baker's lifestyle caught up with his music. It's not that Baker or Holiday worsened over time but it's quite different from his younger days. For contrast, listen to Baker singing this tune in the 1950s.

18. Easy To Love is an instrumental, but one of my favorite standards. Cole Porter was a genius.

19. Chet Baker successfully made My Funny Valentine entirely his song. I am ashamed to admit it was Kanye West's sampling of a Etta James take on this standard that eventually brought me to Chet Baker, after initially falling in love with Miles.

20. Daybreak for those early mornings and a happy start.

21. Just Friends is another number about heartbreak that will make you smile. Baker later sang this in a concert not long before he passed.

22. All Of You is a standard I will forever associate with Miles Davis, but Baker does it justice.

23. Alone Together is a bit too derivative of Miles Davis (thinking of his score for Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) and even features many of the sidemen who famously collaborated with Miles.

24. Autumn In New York receives better treatment from Kenny Dorham or Billie Holiday, but one of my favorite standards.

25. For adapting Love For Sale into funk Baker deserves accolades. Cole Porter's standard was already flawless, but this innovative step does not tamper with the song and a funky beat actually matches a song about a prostitute.

26. Chet Baker sings in Italian for Chetty's Lullaby. Maybe just because Italian is a Romance language and the orchestra backing Baker, but he almost sounds like he's singing a bossa nova here. 

Celia

Tonight has been a Bud Powell kind of evening, and "Celia" remains my favorite of his compositions. If memory serves me right, it is named for his daughter, and it is undoubtedly of those sentimental numbers of his where he proves the piano can accomplish everything Bird did on saxophone. Moreover, Bud's moaning along with his tunes is always a special delight, just like Keith Jarrett would later do, not to mention Max Roach's understated swing. 

Spectrum

"Spectrum" is one of Andrew Hill's more challenging compositions, but a highlight from Point of Departure. Richard Davis, a legendary bassist I once met, shines here until Eric Dolphy's melancholic reassertion during a ballad-like solo, sounding a little like his breath-taking moments on George Russell's take on "Round Midnight." Kenny Dorham, however, does not quite fit in here but the music matches the song's title. Hill's versatility without losing his authenticity always impresses. 

Lost

Jackie McLean has long been one of my favorite jazz alto saxophonists. Like Dolphy, he has a singular voice that is utterly McLean. Unlike Dolphy or say Ornette, McLean was rarely venturing in free jazz territory, but always entertaining and thought-provoking. "Lost" is the highlight of A Fickle Sonance, and Billy Higgins, one of my favorite jazz drummers (up there with Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Ed Blackwell, Art Blakey, Max Roach), who apparently was partly educated in rhythms by Ed Blackwell, switches back and forth between a funky Latin beat and non-Latin swing. Even Butch Warren, an underrated bassist, gets a little time to shine, quoting what sounds like "Old Devil Moon" to my ears.

Herbie Nichols

I am ashamed to admit I know very little about Herbie Nichols, one of the more interesting figures in 1950s jazz but never was celebrated or recognized for his greatness during his life. According to A.B. Spellman, Nichols was often trapped playing with Dixieland revival groups instead of pursuing the music of his heart. Spellman's excellent Four Lives goes into great detail on the tragedy of Nichols and the limitations imposed on jazz in general during the 1960s, especially discriminatory cabaret card laws, record company exploitation of musicians, and racism in the jazz magazines and criticism. Highly recommended is the chapter on Ornette Coleman and his experience in the South and California. 

Prosthetic Cubans

First recorded on Marc Ribot y los Cubanos Postizos, their first album, this take on "Choserito Plena" is lively and rock influenced, which shows Ribot's other strength while accompanied by talented Latin percussion. While not on the same level as Sabu and Arsenio Rodriguez's take on the same tune, which also features vocals, Ribot's take on this classic is worthwhile for doing something different and not losing itself in that elusive quest for authenticity, as the band's humorous name suggests. 

With a Carib Eye

Edgar Mittelholzer's With a Carib Eye was published in 1958, a fateful year in the British West Indies, but also only 4 years before V.S. Naipaul's The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies - British, French and Dutch in the West Indies and South America. While Naipaul's text is more ambitious and travels beyond the confines of the British colonies of the Caribbean, there are some rather fascinating parallels in how both Mittelholzer and Naipaul approach their region as "natives." Naipaul, coming from the Indian community of Trinidad, for example, does not depict Indo-Trinidadians as entirely creolized as Mittelholzer's text seeks to do. 

Both, however, linger on the Western character of Caribbean society, but for Mittelholzer there is no problem with "mimicry" of British or European cultures and norms. Thus, in a very surprising way, Naipaul's actually "right" in a sense that in the West Indies, the tragedy of the black man is to be recast in so many European moulds, but Mittelholzer accepts this as proof that the West Indies is "modern" and not primitive. One sees their ideological and biases play out in Naipaul's praise for calypso as a Trinidadian art form while Mittelholzer looks down on calypso, preferring to praise the accomplishments of West Indian artists, poets, and writers hampered only by economic conditions. 

This continues in their differing approaches to "modern" as defined in Trinidad, where Naipaul criticizes the notion that modernity in Trinidad's middle and upper classes equals consumption of overpriced Northern products while excellent Trinidadian coffee or furniture is cast aside and equated with the poor. One suspects that Mittelholzer is framing his travelogue in the tradition of J.J. Thomas's Froudacity (both are quick to distance themselves from Haiti and its alleged voodoo, not to mention Mittelholzer's eagerness to identify Barbados as an extension of England or brush aside the African and local influences in Saint Lucia's Creole-speaking population)) just as Naipaul embraces Froude and Trollope as a foundation for his self-distancing from the lack of wholly original or "new" societies legitimately rooted among the people. 

Of course, both Mittelholzer and Naipaul offer problematic views of the Caribbean culturally and historically, but how the two intersect and depart from each other and relate to their respective 19th century ideological forebears provide some interesting contrast on how two well-known writers of Trinidad and Guyana approached region, race, culture, and their sense of themselves in the world. A fine synthesis of Naipaul and Mittelholzer is likely to lead to a more holistic view of the West Indies and its people, one in which creolization and even, God forbid, African influences, are not incompatible with Caribbean modernity and the development of national cultures. Perhaps one could even suggest that time has sided with such a perspective as scholarship and Caribbean literatures point to a much needed nuance of complicated concepts such as  modernization, creolization, colonialism, and racial identity.