AMG Review of Very Best of Chet Baker [EMI]

Matt Collar
All Music Guide

Pacific Jazz's The Very Best of Chet Baker compiles many of iconic jazz trumpeter Chet Baker's superb tracks he recorded for the label in the '50s. Included are such classic cuts as his vocal version of "My Funny Valentine," "Time After Time," "The Thrill Is Gone," and others. One would be hard pressed to call this a definitive "best-of" in that no cuts Baker recorded while with saxophonist Gerry Mulligan appear here. Nonetheless, as an introduction to the trumpeter's own quartet work this is fine.