Big Pacific

Chet Baker was a primary exponent of the West Coast school of cool jazz in the early and mid-'50s. As a trumpeter, he had a generally restrained, intimate playing style and he attracted attention beyond jazz for his photogenic looks and singing. But his career was marred by drug addiction. Baker's father, Chesney Henry Baker,Sr., was a guitarist who was forced to turn to other work during the Depression; his mother, Vera (Moser) Baker, worked in a perfumery. The family moved from Oklahoma to Glendale, CA, in 1940. As a child, Baker sang at amateur competitions and in a church choir.

This film, which opens with Pass playing alone on six wonderful tunes, was made during a European tour that took place some months before the recording of their second album as a duet, titled precisely Fitzgerald & Pass Again, taped on February 8, 1975. Thus, it presents some tunes that would be part of that LP, making this program (and probably the whole tour) a kind of rehearsal for the songs to be included on the studio album.