There were two Chet Bakers—the troubled, self-destructive narcissist who squandered much of his enormous talent and burned many of his bridges, and the sensualist who had no hang-ups exposing his soft side while improvising on trumpet and flugelhorn and singing sensitively. Both sides were astonishing, largely because they co-existed. As a 1950s Los Angeles talent with cinematic looks and vulnerability akin to actors James Dean and Montgomery Clift, Baker recklessly assumed fate would forgive his indiscretions. And for a time, he assumed correctly. Not so Dean and Clift.
Dean died in a 1955 car crash at age 24 and Clift nearly died in a car crash in 1956 after leaving a party at Elizabeth Taylor's home. He turned to alcohol and pills to ease lingering pain from operations—addictions that likely compromised his health and led to a fatal heart attack in 1966 at age 45. Baker spent much of his relatively short life making beautiful music while disappointing many friends, angering lenders and getting into trouble with the law. In addition to an arrest and incarceration in Italy in 1960 for forging a drug prescription, he lost most of his teeth in a 1966 drug-related beating after performing at the Trident in Sausalito, Calif.
In the years that followed, Baker struggled with dentures, re-learned how to play trumpet and flugelhorn, and lumbered along recording a long series of lousy pop albums. Between 1968 and 1973, he largely stopped playing altogether and worked at a gas station, went on welfare, was arrested for forging heroin prescriptions and was ordered by a judge to participate in a methadone program to overcome his addiction. During his early 1970s comeback, his U.S. recordings were largely inconsistent.
Then in late 1977, he relocated to Europe, where he began to tour and record an extensive number of albums. In 1979 alone, he recorded 11 albums, many of them excellent. Now we have the addition of an upcoming release—Chet Baker: Blue Room, The 1979 VARA Studio Sessions in Holland (Jazz Detective), which brings the album total in 1979 to 12. Co-produced by Jazz Detective's Zev Feldman and Frank Jochemsen, and released in partnership with Elemental Music, the limited, two-LP set due on Record Day on April 22 will also be issued as a two-CD set and digital download and stream on April 28.
The album features Baker on April 10 and November 9, 1979 playing beautifully. On the April 10 date, Baker was joined by Phil Markowitz (p), Jean-Louis Rassinfosse (b) and Charles Rice (d). They recorded Wayne Shorter's Beautiful Black Eyes, the standards Oh, You Crazy Moon, The Best Things for You and Blue Room, Miles Davis's Down, Baker's Blue Gilles and Davis's Nardis.
The November 9 session featured Baker (tp, vocals), Frans Elsen (p), Victor Kaihatu (b) and Eric Ineke (d). The songs recorded were the standards Candy, My Ideal and Old Devil Moon, and Phil Urso's Luscious Lou. Baker's horn again sounds fleshy and deeply introspective.
To his credit, Baker by 1979 was able to overcome his physical and emotional demons or at least keep them in check. His playing here is soft and lyrical, and the studio fidelity is warm and balanced, though the bass seems to be mixed a little hot in spots. Baker sings on Oh, You Crazy Moon, Candy and My Ideal, and while his voice is strained and off-key, it still retains some of the dreamy charm and innocence of his early 1950s vocals. [Photo above of Chet Baker at VARA Studio 2 on April 10, 1979 courtesy of the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Image]
The album's high point for me is Nardis, which is a personal shocker. I never cared much for the song, perhaps because of how pianist Bill Evans routinely used it as a lengthy, stormy solo extravaganza. Baker, by contrast, plays it gently and slows it down as a mid-tempo ballad, a pace that allows the song's elegant twists and turns to surface and stand out. Finally, we're given a chance to absorb the song.
Chet Baker in the late 1980s was the subject of a celebrated and superb black-and-white documentary called Let's Get Lost, directed by Bruce Weber. After its release, Baker was rediscovered again by a new, younger generation of jazz fans, thanks in large measure to the growing popularity of the CD format and labels reissuing his early music on discs. Filming on Let's Get Lost began in January 1987, and the film was released in September 1988.
Baker didn't live to see it. On May 13, 1988, he was found dead on the street below his room at the Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam. Tragically, he fell from the second-story window. Heroin and cocaine were found in his room and in his blood stream. His death was ruled an accident. Baker was 58.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find the limited LP release of Chet Baker: Blue Room, The 1979 VARA Studio Sessions in Holland (Jazz Detective) at your local record store on April 22. To find a record store near you, go here.
The double-CD and digital download and stream will be released on April 28. You'll find it here.
JazzWax clip: Here's Nardis...
