Home >> Chet Baker
>> She was too Good to Me
Chet Baker
She Was Too Good To Me |
|
| Chet Baker, Trumpet,
Vocal
Paul Desmond, Alto Saxophone
Bob James, Electric Piano
Ron Carter, Bass
Jack DeJohnette, Drums
Steve Gadd, Drums
Dave Friedman, Vibes
Hubert Laws, Flute, Alto Flute
Romeo Penque, Flute, Clarinet
George Marge, Alto Flute, Oboe d' amore
Lewis Eley, Violin
Max Ellen, Violin
Barry Finclair, Violin
Paul Gershman, Violin
Harry Glickman, Violin
Emanuel Green, Violin
Harold Kohon, Violin
David Nadien, Violin
Herbert Sorkin, Violin
Warren Lash, Cello
Jessie Levy, Cello
George Ricci, Cello
Arranged and Conducted
by Don Sebesky
Produced by 
Recorded at
Van Gelder Studios
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Rudy Van Gelder, Engineer
Recorded July 17, October 31, and November 1, 1974
Catalog Number:
ZK 40804
Format: CD
Label: CBS |
|
|
Shipping charges are $2.98 for domestic and Canadian orders, and $9.95 for international orders.
FREE SHIPPING on domestic and Canadian orders of $25 or greater, FREE SHIPPING on international orders of $55 or greater!
CTI can provide Gift-Wrap service on your order. Six different wrap designs are available. We include your greeting message. Cost is $2.00 per item.
|
Producer’s Note
During the Korean War, I was part of a Marine combat unit. In my backpack
were three important items: a battery operated LP record player, a 10”
copy of Zoot Sims’ Behind the Red Door and a copy of the Gerry Mulligan
Quartet with Chet Baker. This became an important part of my spiritual sustenance.
A year later, I came back from Korea and was discharged from the Marine
Corps in San Francisco. The day after I arrived, Chet was appearing with
a small group at the Blackhawk Jazz Club. Coincidentally, Paul Desmond walked
in and joined the group for a complete set. I was in absolute awe! About
ten years later I met both players. It was the beginning of an unforgettable
musical relationship. –
Creed Taylor
Chet Baker in his own
words
“As I rely 100% on the ear, I react strongly to everything that goes
on around me. The conditions that I’ve had while learning to play
do not exist anymore. I feel like I belong to a species threatened by destruction.
Sad, in a way, but that’s what they call progress, isn’t it?”
“I play every set
as if it were the final one. It has been like this for years. I don’t
have too much time left, and it’s important to show the musicians
I’m playing with – more than anybody else – that I give
everything I’ve got in me. And that I expect them to do the same.
Music comes from within, and it happens thanks to the musicians I’m
playing with. I love to play, and I think that’s the only reason I’ve
been brought into the world.” –
Thorbjoen Sjogren
Lyrical, Chet's All Around
Very Best!!
Chet Baker entered my life before I was a teenager, when someone in my family
brought the classic Chet Baker and Strings into our home – presumably
by accident – and left it sitting around for a few weeks. Since no
one at home listened to LPs (except my Dad's opera sets), any albums (from
Gilbert and Sullivan to Tchaikovsky to Sigmund Romberg) not played within
a short time after their arrival in the home simply moved upstairs and became
mine. Hence, Chet Baker was my first introduction to jazz.
That was the 1950s. I returned to jazz and to Chet Baker after many years,
during which Chet's life (and especially his teeth) had gone to [his addiction],
and he had regained his chops with amazing effort. Now, again, he was
beginning to rise in the public eye – though nothing like the interest
triggered by his death some years later (walking out of a 2nd story window
"by accident"). One of the prominent comeback albums when I
checked back in was the gorgeous She Was Too Good to Me.
Like my much earlier introduction, this album is lush with strings, and
rich, crystal clear production. (Many of the also-lyrical 1950s albums
are musically superb, but lacking clear production.) Here, though, I was
introduced to my first Chet Baker vocals, later learning that this was
among his most tuneful, on-key vocal sessions.
Chet Baker is the most lyrical of all jazz trumpeters – even including
the extraordinary Joe Wilder and Joe Newman. Chet's tone is always thick
and buttery, rather than sharp and brassy. (Thinking only of his trumpet's
tone, the buttery texture of Chuck Mangione's horn comes to mind, although
Chet dwarfs Mangione in every respect.) His improvisations are always
gracefully inventive, never edgy or harsh. The songs he plays are quite
recognizable, but the listener is always taught something new about the
song's full possibilities. These qualities are shown nowhere as clearly
as on this great album. Several of these songs have received too little
cover during the decades of jazz – notably the title cut and the
infectious "With A Song in My Heart" (Mom's favorite!). And
unlike the vast majority of Chet's vocals, especially his later vocals
after the problems had seemingly taken over – his voice here is
consistently as true as his honey-sweet horn – on-key, gentle, seductively
challenging, musically precise.
When speaking to someone interested in first "getting into" jazz,
but put off by its initial incoherence, this is always my recommendation.
Accessible but smart; smooth but challenging; and always seductively appealing.
This is music which is quick to please, yet never stale.
– Jimmy Winoker
Chet Baker, She Was Too Good to Me
In 1953, upon the success of his best-selling recording
of “My Funny Valentine” with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Chet Baker became
an instant star. He began winning polls here and abroad with rhythmic regularity
for five years. His “Valentine” solo was soft and lyrical. Lyricism seemed
to be Baker's stock in trade, although he was capable of playing crackling
bop lines of great intricacy and inventiveness. And he sang. He sang with…
well, let Rex Reed describe it… “an innocent sweetness that made girls fall
right out of their saddle oxfords.” Before he had time to digest the fact
of his sudden celebrity as a trumpet soloist, Chet found himself winning
polls as a vocalist. In one, he was tied with Nat Cole. From obscurity to
status among the jazz public as a more popular trumpet player than Louie
Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, and as a singer the equal of
Nat King Cole. All in the space of slightly more than a year. Enough to
turn the head of the shy young son of an Oklahoma cowboy guitarist. Or send
him off the deep end. But the deep end was a few years away, and Baker kept
turning out best-selling albums, most of which were also critical successes.
He became a leader. He toured Europe. He made a movie. He went off the deep
end. Chet says he “got sick” in 1957. What made him sick was heroin. He
battled it, without much success. He made records, some of them among his
best. He played clubs and concerts. In 1970 Baker gave up playing altogether
and lived on welfare with his wife and children, but in 1973 he took up
the trumpet again, and one incident in particular triggered his comeback.
During a visit to Denver to see his old friend Phil Urso, he stopped by
at a club where Dizzy Gillespie was playing. When Gillespie heard that Baker
was playing regularly again and was interested in getting gigs, he called
up the Canterino Brothers, who were running New York's legendary Half Note.
Baker then played three weeks at the Half Note in July, and this was the
beginning of his comeback. However, working opportunities were still limited
in the States, so in July 1975, Baker again tried his luck in Europe, after
11 years' absence. And although he had been out of focus for almost this
entire period, he was definitely not a forgotten man in Europe. Though he
did not set up any sort of permanent headquarters, he spent the main part
of his remaining 13 years in Europe. Constantly on the move, playing the
most remote locations, under the weirdest circumstances, with accompanists
ranging from the sublime to the amateurish. If he had a few weeks at one
place, he stayed with friends. Dutch trumpeter Evert Hekkema gave him an
extra key to his apartment, so he could just come and go as he pleased.
But mostly it was long car rides, hotel rooms, small clubs, and the next
day the same all over again. Once in a while, he was back in the States
for a short while to see his family in Oklahoma (he was still married to
Carol at the time of his death). He soon returned to Europe each time, and
he ended up being the most frequently-recorded American jazzman. A complete
Chet Baker collection will hold approximately 200 albums, some available
on LP, some on CD, but half of this number made during his last fifteen
years. Chet Baker died on May 13, 1988, in Amsterdam, Holland. He (allegedly)
fell from the window of his hotel room in the early morning hours. He was
58 years old.
–
Thorbjoen Sjogren
|
Chet Baker
Photos by Chuck Stewart |
|
|
BACK TO TOP
Copyright (C) 2003 CTI Jazz Online,
Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions? Problems? E-mail webmaster@ctijazz.com
|
to hear sound samples.