Skip h wrote (re: Chet Baker)
The guy made too many albums entirely -- cash for drugs -- and probably has as many titles in print as Sun Ra. There are about five really great albums in there (the duet record with Paul Bley is shocking good), but mostly it's a guy on heroin trying to get out of the studio early.
BROKEN WING, if you can find it (it was on Inner City), is about my favorite post Russ Freeman record of his.
BTW -- when LET'S GET LOST was being filmed, Chet was in a room with jack heldon for the first time in over two decades. He asked Frank Strazzeri "What happened to Chetty's face?"
"Those are laugh lines, Jack."
"Shit -- nothing's THAT funny."
And for West Coast trumpet -- or inprovising in general -- Jack is about as great as it gets.
skip h
That last statement is a bit provocative, considering Don Cherry, and Texas transplant Bobby Bradford are LA contemporaries, but I gotta admit, despite his willingness to do showbiz schtick, Jack Sheldon has been the real deal on trumpet, going on 50 years. Personal fav: "Complete" from 'You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce". As for Chet Baker, James Gavin has a recent book out that's pretty interesting, but after a while, just like Art Pepper, you stop feeling sorry for the guy. (Interesting that Pepper, though they made a record together, despised Baker for being a snitch, where Pepper held the con's code of silence.) Sheldon & Baker make a great contrast.
on 12/19/03 2:25 AM, David Slusser at slusser@pixar.com wrote:
As for Chet Baker, James Gavin has a recent book out that's pretty interesting, but after a while, just like Art Pepper, you stop feeling sorry for the guy.
Apart from the fact that it is quite inhumane--not to mention simply bad policy--to incarcerate people for simple drug possession, was there really any point in "Let's Get Lost" or "Straight Life" where you felt sorry for either Baker or Pepper? It seems quite apparent that they were both major a-holes whose addictions poisoned their lives and the lives of everyone around them. As musicians, it's Pepper hands down. --Mike
on 12/19/03 5:01 AM, Mike Chamberlain at mikec@rocler.qc.ca wrote:
As musicians, it's Pepper hands down.
--Mike
It would seem that way, but Chet baker had some incredible moments as a player -- find "Love Nest" or "Tommyhawk" (both on Pacific jazz). Pepper made his share of dull records (and then some), but not nearly so many as Chet. On the other hand, the best Chet baker is right up there with the best Art Pepper. Art pepper did clean up (somewhat) long enough to make some really good records in the 70s and 80s. Also, he could play a blues really well, something the West Coast mainstream has never been known for. sh
on 12/18/03 11:25 PM, David Slusser at slusser@pixar.com wrote:
That last statement is a bit provocative, considering Don Cherry, and Texas transplant Bobby Bradford are LA contemporaries, but I gotta admit, despite his willingness to do showbiz schtick, Jack Sheldon has been the real deal on trumpet, going on 50 years. Personal fav: "Complete" from 'You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce".
Good point, and I likely should have qualified -- I never saw Cherry, Ornette, Bley, Mingus or Dolphy as representative of the West Coast scene. They seemed to me to be away from everything else. I think they'd have come to the same muscial conclusion if they'd emerged from any American city. I always thougt of Jimmy Giufre as the prototype West Coast avant garde guy. And those Counce records are dazzling. Glad to see I'm not the only one who owns 'em.
As for Chet Baker, James Gavin has a recent book out that's pretty interesting, but after a while, just like Art Pepper, you stop feeling sorry for the guy. (Interesting that Pepper, though they made a record together, despised Baker for being a snitch, where Pepper held the con's code of silence.) Sheldon & Baker make a great contrast.
I read that thing. A friend loaned it to me with the warning, "At some point in the book, you just wonder why he never ... you know." I figured about what "you know" meant when the book got to his first trip to Italy. The guy never took any responsibility for anything in his life. skip h
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skip heller