Pent

Chet Baker & Paul Bley - Diane (1985) {SteepleChase SCCD-31207}
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© 1985 SteepleChase | SCCD-31207
Jazz / Cool / Post Bop / Trumpet / Piano

Chet Baker recorded at every opportunity during the last decade or so of his tragic life, with widely varying results due to his drug addiction. But this surprising duo session with pianist Paul Bley is one of his better efforts from this period, focusing primarily on standard ballads by top composers. Bley's playing in the mid-'80s usually was freer in nature, but he willingly plays more mainstream backing for the trumpeter.

Chet Baker - Chet Is Back! (1962) {Bluebird First Editions Series rel 2003}
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© 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.

Recorded just a year before his death, this English album (releasing previously unknown music for the first time in 1986) is about the only one released from Bobby Jaspar's final four years.

During his extended "stay" in Europe circa the late '50s and early '60s, Chet Baker produced half a dozen albums for the Riverside Records subsidiary label Jazzland. On Chet Baker in Milan – the first of his overseas sides – Baker revisits the familiar stomping grounds of West Coast cool, even though he is the only American in the band. The basic quartet includes Chet Baker (trumpet), Renato Sellani (piano), Franco Serri (bass), and Gene Victory (drums). However, on a majority of the cuts, that unit is upgraded to a sextet with sax players Glauco Masetti (alto) and Gianno Basso (tenor). According to Peter Drew's brief liner notes essay, these Italian players were found by a local record label and arrangements were essentially retrofitted to suit Baker.