Chet Baker Early Years

Chet Baker - Italian Movies (1958-1964) {3CD Set Moochin' About MOOCHIN03 rel 2013}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 660 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 305 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 29 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1958-64, 2013 Moochin' About | MOOCHIN03
Jazz / Cool / Stage & Screen / Continental Jazz / Original Score / Trumpet

Before delving into the music on this collection, it's important to offer a note of caution to Chet Baker fans: Italian Movies is not a really a compilation of the trumpeter's work, so much as a series of film scores by the great composer Piero Umiliani between 1958 and 1964 on which he is featured either as a soloist or as part of the orchestra. It might better have been marketed to Umiliani fans, but it's tough to fault label Moochin' About for a little creative license when repackaging a previous issue of this music that appeared on Liuto Records – that one was co-billed to the pair. Other than on disc three – where Baker doesn't get to solo until track nine in the score for 1962's Smog, yet is still featured for 20 minutes – there is plenty of him to go around as he works amid his Italian contemporaries.

Chet Baker features two concerts by the foremost interpreter of the West Coast school of cool jazz. Filmed in Europe 15 years apart, these two shows seen together provide an overview of Baker’s illustrious career. The first show is a haunting 1964 performance in a Belgian TV studio with a quartet including long-time sidemen saxophonist Jacques Pelzer and French pianist Rene Urtreger. Songs include the Miles Davis classic, “So What,” and the jazz standard “Time After Time” (a very rare rendition featuring Chet’s “Cool” vocal style.) The soulful1979 set from Norway, with a trio featuring vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid, highlights the growth and maturity of this troubled but inspiring artist.

Chet Baker - Chet Is Back! (1962) {Bluebird First Editions Series rel 2003}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 296 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 153 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 20 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1962, 2003 RCA / Bluebird | 09026-64020-2
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Trumpet

Having been reissued numerous times over the years under various titles, this Bluebird version of Chet Is Back! stands out as the definitive packaging of one of Chet Baker's best early-'60s recordings. Besides featuring the original artwork and liner notes – as well as detailed new liner notes from James Gavin, author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker – the real impetus to pick this up is the inclusion of four orchestral pop singles Baker recorded with Ennio Morricone around the same time as the album. Never before released in the U.S., these tracks were purportedly composed by the trumpeter/vocalist while serving jail time in Lucca, Italy after obtaining fake drug prescriptions.

Much like Paul Desmond, trumpeter Chet Baker led two musical lives early in his career. One was to play foil to Gerry Mulligan's cool-headed, contrapuntal baritone saxophone, in the process lending some much-needed warmth to the celebrated pianoless quartet in which Baker first came to prominence in 1952. But the real Chet Baker, the far-from-abstract romantic and popular musician, emerged full-blown on this with-strings session in 1954. Baker doesn't sing on this date, not with his voice anyway. His burnished, mid-register trumpet gracefully leads the way through picture-perfect autumnal settings provided by young arrangers Marty Paich, Johnny Mandel and Shorty Rogers.

On "Lockdown Releases" you follow the path of Wolfgang Lackerschmid's creative and varied musical history from the late seventies till 2020. All these tracks were either digitally remastered, finally completed or even recorded during the lockdown in spring 2020.

On "Lockdown Releases" you follow the path of Wolfgang Lackerschmid's creative and varied musical history from the late seventies till 2020. All these tracks were either digitally remastered, finally completed or even recorded during the lockdown in spring 2020.