Chet Baker, misjudged?

[Victor Christensen]

I have about 40 CD's with Chet, some are great and some are bad, my favorire is "Chet's Choice" on Criss Cross, very very good, and also "Diane" with Paul Bley(duo) on Steeple Chase, but the truth is I hardly listen to him anymore, so what can I say.

Vic

[Jim R]

Chet fans may want to check this out. It's audio only (other than a still photo), but I think it's a fairly obscure recording (at least it used to be). It was always one of my favorite individual Chet tracks. It was released on the Moon label, and comes from a 1976 performance in Rome, with Jacques Pelzer (fl), Harold Danko (p), and Isla Eckinger (b)...

Deep In A Dream / live

[warning: this recording contains Chet Baker vocals]

[BruceH]

People have different tastes, and I have no problem with people who can't stand Chet's singing, for example.

Whew! 'Cause I gotta tell you, it creeps me out.

Same here.

[Teasing the Korean]

I like his singing up through maybe the 1960s. He had great breath control. Beyond that time I don't really care for it.

[sjarrell]

I was a Chet Junkie in the late 80s, started listening to other stuff and branched out and away from Chesney & the west coast in general. I've all the while regularly pulled out the Art Pepper collaborations and the Chet Baker & Crew/Young Chet material. But recently I played in Paris vol 1, the one with Twardzik and the Bob Zieff tunes- and holy cow, it's about a million times better than I remembered it. And I remembered fondly. I played that thing like I was 10 yrs old with a new 45. Over and over and over. And never got enough. Love.

But what the hell do I know? I love Chet's PJ singing.

[Niko]

So many Chet's recordings, of course all of the mid 50's dates in Los Angeles with Russ Freeman.

Also all of the Prestige's dates in the sixties with George Coleman. I heard that Chet felt cheated by

the producer for these.

been wondering about that many times... how many lps did baker record that were for somewhat strange labels (ran possibly by somewhat nicer guys)? how many times did baker fail to fulfill his side of a contract or fulfill it in a way that didn't quite satisfy the other side? several thousand times? and these carpenter/prestige albums at least have good bands, good material (brought together by carpenter, not in the right way maybe, but it was there and animated chet to do something slightly different for once) and good recording quality? something about that experience must have been real bad? or maybe it was just that carpenter made baker feel like a loser....

i mean - how can he call these albums the biggest mistake of his career (like he did iirc) when he recorded, say, more than a hundred worse albums and so many albums for which he just got an upfront fee of 1000$ and nothing more...

[BillF]

Yesterday I played 24 tracks by the classic 1952-53 Mulligan Quartet. Chet's musical genius is written all over those!

[Niko]

I was a Chet Junkie in the late 80s, started listening to other stuff and branched out and away from Chesney & the west coast in general. I've all the while regularly pulled out the Art Pepper collaborations and the Chet Baker & Crew/Young Chet material. But recently I played in Paris vol 1, the one with Twardzik and the Bob Zieff tunes- and holy cow, it's about a million times better than I remembered it. And I remembered fondly. I played that thing like I was 10 yrs old with a new 45. Over and over and over. And never got enough. Love.

But what the hell do I know? I love Chet's PJ singing.

might know what you mean - baker pales surprisingly much when you bunch him together with all the other fifties trumpeters, somehow he is very much a man of his own terms... (like, can it really be true that he couldn't read chord symbols and just relied on listening) when i haven't played his music in a while my wish to do so always gets less and less

[fasstrack]

I just got done listening to "Chet Is Back" and, like many times before...am reminded just how engaging he is. Over the years, his music is something I return to often. Junkie-dom and Milesian-white-hope shit aside...I can't help but think that Chet Baker is a bad mf and had a musical element that is missing in even the greatest of the great.

A great way people could misjudge Chet is to read a bullshit claptrap of a 'biography' that came out a few years back---by a guy named James Gavin. I really wish people would boycott such sensational garbage, but the smarter ones will realize where it's at after a few sentences. A much better one came out by a Dutch author. I can't remember his name (someone help me out, please) but the guy knew about music, didn't talk out of his rear end, and it never sidestepped the addiction thing or other less appealing factors, he just didn't try to sell books with it.

I felt the same way about that movie that came out in '89 or so (Let's Get Lost) as about Gavin's book: shameful image-pimping by an exploitative music no-nothing. But it had a great version of Zingaro, at least.

Just thought I get it off my chest. Hope it wasn't a bringdown, but we've had enough sensational idiocy that gets a pass b/c people just don't know enough about music or the lives of its practitioners.

Edited August 6, 2009 by fasstrack

[fasstrack]

Another late-period recording that I really like is the Live in Tokyo twofer.

Agreed. Superb.

[AndrewHill]

Yesterday I played 24 tracks by the classic 1952-53 Mulligan Quartet. Chet's musical genius is written all over those!

Some of my favorite Baker as well as Mulligan.

[AllenLowe]

I saw Baker twice, near Boston, maybe 1975, and at Strykers in NYC maybe a year or two before - he was brilliant both times, with an aggressive turn to his lyric style which was just a wonder to hear. It was as though he'd been somewhat affected by some of the early '60s Miles.

In the one conversation we had he was extremely nice (I knew the guy who sold him his suits, who had a little clothing store near Harvard Square) and mentioned Kenny Dorham as his prime influence, which I thought was interesting.

Edited August 7, 2009 by AllenLowe

[Swinging Swede]

After the 1952 engagement, Charlie Parker supposedly said to Dizzy Gillespie: "You better look out, there’s a little white cat out on the West Coast whose gonna eat you up.” When was Bird ever wrong musically? Chet Baker could play, IMO. And while I prefer his playing, his singing was a lot better than Kenny Dorham's.

[jostber]

I just got done listening to "Chet Is Back" and, like many times before...am reminded just how engaging he is. Over the years, his music is something I return to often. Junkie-dom and Milesian-white-hope shit aside...I can't help but think that Chet Baker is a bad mf and had a musical element that is missing in even the greatest of the great.

A great way people could misjudge Chet is to read a bullshit claptrap of a 'biography' that came out a few years back---by a guy named James Gavin. I really wish people would boycott such sensational garbage, but the smarter ones will realize where it's at after a few sentences. A much better one came out by a Dutch author. I can't remember his name (someone help me out, please) but the guy knew about music, didn't talk out of his rear end, and it never sidestepped the addiction thing or other less appealing factors, he just didn't try to sell books with it.

I felt the same way about that movie that came out in '89 or so (Let's Get Lost) as about Gavin's book: shameful image-pimping by an exploitative music no-nothing. But it had a great version of Zingaro, at least.

Just thought I get it off my chest. Hope it wasn't a bringdown, but we've had enough sensational idiocy that gets a pass b/c people just don't know enough about music or the lives of its practitioners.

The Dutch writer is Jeroen De Valk and the book is "Chet Baker: His Life and Music".

http://www.jeroendevalk.nl/books/his_life_and_music_CB.html

[Larry Kart]

Agree totally with Fasstrack about the dumb, exploitive nastiness of Gavin's Baker bio and the virtues of Jeroen De Valk's. Gavin's real subject, as the book eventually makes clear, should have been filmmaker-photographer Bruce Weber ("Let's Get Lost" and those sexually equivocal ad photos of naked young men and Labrador retrievers romping around in swimming pools). It's Weber that Gavin really knows and cares about, though Gavin cares about Weber so much because he pretty much hates him.

[marcello]

I'll have to re-read the James Gavin ( whose other books I like a lot: "Stormy Weather" and "Intimate Nights"), along with the Jeroen De Valk books.

[fasstrack]

I just got done listening to "Chet Is Back" and, like many times before...am reminded just how engaging he is. Over the years, his music is something I return to often. Junkie-dom and Milesian-white-hope shit aside...I can't help but think that Chet Baker is a bad mf and had a musical element that is missing in even the greatest of the great.

A great way people could misjudge Chet is to read a bullshit claptrap of a 'biography' that came out a few years back---by a guy named James Gavin. I really wish people would boycott such sensational garbage, but the smarter ones will realize where it's at after a few sentences. A much better one came out by a Dutch author. I can't remember his name (someone help me out, please) but the guy knew about music, didn't talk out of his rear end, and it never sidestepped the addiction thing or other less appealing factors, he just didn't try to sell books with it.

I felt the same way about that movie that came out in '89 or so (Let's Get Lost) as about Gavin's book: shameful image-pimping by an exploitative music no-nothing. But it had a great version of Zingaro, at least.

Just thought I get it off my chest. Hope it wasn't a bringdown, but we've had enough sensational idiocy that gets a pass b/c people just don't know enough about music or the lives of its practitioners.

The Dutch writer is Jeroen De Valk and the book is "Chet Baker: His Life and Music".

http://www.jeroendevalk.nl/books/his_life_and_music_CB.html

Right. Thanks.

[fasstrack]

Agree totally with Fasstrack about the dumb, exploitive nastiness of Gavin's Baker bio and the virtues of Jeroen De Valk's. Gavin's real subject, as the book eventually makes clear, should have been filmmaker-photographer Bruce Weber ("Let's Get Lost" and those sexually equivocal ad photos of naked young men and Labrador retrievers romping around in swimming pools). It's Weber that Gavin really knows and cares about, though Gavin cares about Weber so much because he pretty much hates him.

And nobody should care about either of them. They send exactly the wrong message, and either are too lame to know or too cynically exploitative to care.

Why does no one make a movie about Dizzy Gillespie? B/c he was a success and not a fucked up junkie? (I'm not saying that's all there is to Chet, just what seems, sadly, to be interesting to stupid people and those who would grab their srupid money by exploiting All I know, and care about, is his music----I realize that is atypical, and that's also sad). What does that say about peoples' interests? I realize the romantic imagery angle at work, but why can't a success story and a great role model like Diz be interesting also? I think it could.

[bakeostrin]

On August 6, 2009 at 1:16 AM, Niko said:

 

 

been wondering about that many times... how many lps did baker record that were for somewhat strange labels (ran possibly by somewhat nicer guys)? how many times did baker fail to fulfill his side of a contract or fulfill it in a way that didn't quite satisfy the other side? several thousand times? and these carpenter/prestige albums at least have good bands, good material (brought together by carpenter, not in the right way maybe, but it was there and animated chet to do something slightly different for once) and good recording quality? something about that experience must have been real bad? or maybe it was just that carpenter made baker feel like a loser....

 

i mean - how can he call these albums the biggest mistake of his career (like he did iirc) when he recorded, say, more than a hundred worse albums and so many albums for which he just got an upfront fee of 1000$ and nothing more...

Producer Paolo Piangiarelli (founder Philology Records) LOVED Chet (see liner notes Piangiarelli wrote for many of the albums).  In looking through this thread, there are a couple Philology discs mentioned "Live at the Moonlight" (very rare, at least on cd, 2 CD set); "Little Girl Blue" (w/Piangiarelli's daughter on the cover.  I would add "Heart of the Ballad" also (duo w/Enrico Pieranunzi, whom Piangiarelli says was Baker's favorite pianist, also is part of the Space Jazz Trio from "Little Girl Blue").  One of the worst dates (May 22/23 1987) is "Night at the Shalimar."  Piangiarelli describes the difficulties; basically that Baker was too strung out to play. Nonetheless, the next date appearing in the discography is the Tokyo concert (June 14, 1987), a highpoint of his career post losing his teeth.

Piangiarelli produced many, many albums of Phil Woods (for whom the label is named) and Lee Konitz, although judging from the notes.  Piangiarelli was very aware of Baker's lifestyle, see for example the notes to Naima Unusual Chet V. 1 (there is no V. 2).  

I post this to point out that in that final decade of his life, Baker had a close relationship with a producer who really appreciated him for (or despite) all that he was.

For late period Chet, consider some of those Philology cd's; also I second the Moon "Deep in a Dream of You" and the date w/Urtreger & Michelot on Carlyne.  Live at Fat Tuesday's w/Bud Shank is not bad either.

Edited September 2, 2016 by bakeostrin
Typo "founder" rather than "found"

[fasstrack]

On 30/08/2006 at 0:12 PM, medjuck said:

Unfortunately I think "Let's Get Lost" is oop. and has never been available as a DVD. I avoided seeing it when it first came out because it sounded exploitative.  

It was exploitative, very much so. As was James Gavin's claptrap of a book. They cashed in on the junkie-outlaw image, and neither film-maker nor author had the depth of knowledge to adequately discuss the music. Worthless stuff... 

[ArtSalt]

It was aesthetically pleasing though and that was the message.

It was Chet Baker through the prism of Bruce Weber's advertising style.

I liked it at the time, I like it now, but the message should be taken at face value. Behind the music and the projections of Weber, there was only the squalid dealings of a junkie. The film captures some of this when Chet tells Weber basically that there is nothing to be found in his obsession with Baker.

 

[fasstrack]

4 hours ago, ArtSalt said:

It was aesthetically pleasing though and that was the message.

 

Well, nice cinematography anyway. I'll give it that...

[Bluesnik]

Yes, I liked the movie and still like it. Weber was obsessed with the Young Chet image, but he showed a realistic portrait of the artist.

[sidewinder]

I like the movie too - for all of its foibles (and it was very much of its time, late 80s/early 1990s). Saw it at an art house cinema at the time it came out and have it on DVD somewhere..

[duaneiac]

8 hours ago, fasstrack said:

It was exploitative, very much so. As was James Gavin's claptrap of a book. They cashed in on the junkie-outlaw image, and neither film-maker nor author had the depth of knowledge to adequately discuss the music. Worthless stuff... 

Welcome to the modern world, where image is everything, talent is secondary and media exploitation is the only way to fame and fortune, no matter what field one pursues.  I wouldn't fault this film in particular for being "exploitative".  Has any Hollywood biography of a musician, be it W. A. Mozart, Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline,  Ray Charles, Brian Wilson  etc., completely adequately explored the musical end of things?  Movies are not illustrated lectures, they are entertainments.

Could one not argue that Chet Baker himself cashed in on the "junkie-outlaw image" for a long part of his career? 

Any one who saw Let's Get Lost and was inspired to buy the soundtrack album at least added a very good Chet Baker CD to their collection, so that's a good thing.