more chet

As an addition to my Chet Baker post from yesterday, here is what Mike Zwerin says about his playing:

And here is some more poignant writing by Mr. Zwerin on the subject of Chet Baker, "the Dostoyevski of jazz"

chet

I've been revisiting the music of one of my favourite musicians - Chet Baker. An enigmatic figure, drug-addled, often unpredictable and aloof, Baker remains a phenomenon 17 years after his death. During his life he was criticized as a Miles Davis imitator and his talent was underestimated in silly and unfair comparisons to Dizzy Gillespie or Clifford Brown. The fact is that Chet Baker possesses something exceedingly rare: a voice of his own. And I don't just mean "voice" as in actual "vocal", though he is also a unique and talented singer.
I mean that there is an unmistakable signature sound in his playing, apparent from the very first note he blows. In that sense what he does is similar to what B. B. King has achieved as a bluesman. There are people with more technique but B.B. plays a single note and you know it's him. That is an unbelievably difficult task for a musician to achieve. I go to jams and concerts and often see a bunch of performers on any given instrument - guitar, trumpet, sax - that sound like clones. That is never the case with Chet. He was always his own man and his sound - both vocally and on the trumpet - is his unique stamp on the world.

I defy anyone not to be moved by the wistful lyricism, the world-weary sadness of "My Funny Valentine" or
"I Fall in Love too Easily". At the same time, he could swing like nobody's business when playing with Gerry Mulligan and later in life with Stan Getz. Listen to Chet and enrich your life. It's too bad that his own should have been so tragic and so short.