Chet Baker - Coleção Folha Classicos do Jazz, Vol. 7
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Artist:
Early days Baker was born and raised in a musical household in Yale, Oklahoma; his father was a professional guitar player. Baker began his musical career singing in a church choir. His father introduced him to brass instruments with a trombone, which was replaced with a trumpet when the trombone proved too large for him. Baker received some musical education at Glendale Junior High School, but left school at age 16 in 1946 to join the United States Army. He was posted to Berlin where he joined the 298th Army band. Leaving the army in 1948, he studied theory and harmony at El Camino College in Los Angeles. He dropped out in his second year, and re-enlisted in the army in 1950. Baker once again obtained a discharge from the army to pursue a career as a professional musician. Baker became a member of the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco, but was soon spending time in San Francisco jazz clubs such as Bop City and the Black Hawk.
Career breakthrough
Baker's earliest notable professional gigs were with saxophonist Vido Musso's band, and also with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, though he earned much more renown in 1951 when he was chosen by Charlie Parker to play with him for a series of West Coast engagements. In 1952, Baker joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which was an instant phenomenon. Several things made the Mulligan/Baker group special, the most prominent being the interplay between Mulligan's baritone sax and Baker's trumpet. Rather than playing identical melody lines in unison like bebop giants Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the two would complement each other's playing with contrapuntal touches, and it often seemed as if they had telepathy in anticipating what the other was going to play next. The Quartet's version of "My Funny Valentine", featuring a memorable Baker solo, was a major hit, and became a song with which Baker was intimately associated.
The Quartet found success quickly, but lasted less than a year because of Mulligan's arrest and imprisonment on drug charges. In 1954, Baker won the Downbeat Jazz Poll. Baker formed a quartet with Russ Freeman in 1953-54 with bassists like Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon, and Jimmy Bond and drummers like Shelly Manne, Larry Bunker, and Bob Neel. The quartet was successful in their three live sets in 1954. The first set was at Ann Arbor in Michigan, and the other two in Los Angeles. In some songs in the set, Baker not only played trumpet, but also "boobams", a set of little tuned drums made from bamboo wood. These were also used in some of his early studio recordings played by one of his percussionists. They were used until he retired them in late 1956. The final album which the novelty drums were used was Chet Baker and the Crew. Over the next few years, Baker fronted his own combos, including a 1955 quintet featuring Francy Boland, where Baker combined playing trumpet and singing. He became an icon of the West Coast "cool school" of jazz, helped by his good looks and singing talent.
Drug addiction and professional decline
A heroin user since the 1950s, the effects of drug addiction eventually caught up with Baker, and his promising musical career declined as a result. Baker would constantly pawn his instruments, for money to maintain his drug habit. In the early 1960s, he served more than a year in prison in Italy on drugs charges, and was later expelled from both West Germany and England for drug-related offenses. Baker was eventually deported from West Germany to the United States after running afoul of the law there a second time. He settled in Milpitas in northern California where he was active in San Jose and San Francisco between short jail terms served for prescription fraud. In 1966, Baker was severely beaten (allegedly while attempting to buy drugs) after a gig in San Francisco, sustaining severe cuts on the lips and broken front teeth, which ruined his embouchure. Accounts of the incident vary, largely because of Baker's lack of reliable testimony on the matter. It has also been suggested that the story is a fabrication altogether, and that Baker's teeth had just rotted due to heavy substance abuse -- two missing teeth can be clearly seen in a 1964 performance in Belgium (on Chet Baker: Live in '64 and '79), suggesting this is indeed the case. From that time he had to learn to play with dentures. Between 1966 and 1974, Baker mostly played flugelhorn and recorded music that could mostly be classified as early smooth jazz or mood music.
Tracks
1. Bockhanal
2. That Old Feeling
3. Dot's Groovy
4. The Route
5. I Get Along Without You Very Well
6. Russ Job
7. But Not For Me
8. Picture Of Heath
9. I Fall In Love Too Easily
10. Lucius Lu
11. Halema
Details
.. Year: 2008
.. Label: Folha de São Paulo
.. Country: U.S.A.
.. Bitrate: VBR
.. Ripped: EAC 9.0
.. Genre: Jazz
.. Home-Page: chetbakertribute.com/
.. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Baker
.. MySpace: n/a
.. Last.fm: www.last.fm/music/Chet Baker
.. BUY ME : Amazon
.. BUY ME: Amazon
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