CHET  

BAKER
BLUE   ROOM
THE 1979 VARA STUDIO
SESSIONS IN HOLLAND
 
SCOURING THE WORLD FOR UNISSUED CHET BAKER RECORDINGS

In February of 2021, while I was working on another Chet Baker production with my partners
Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustín at Elemental Music, I asked my colleague, Frank Jochemsen of
the Nederlands Jazz Archief, if he could find any previously unissued Chet Baker recordings.
Since Jordi, Carlos and I were already working with the Chet Baker Estate doing our best to
contribute to Chet’s legacy with the Live in Paris release on Elemental, we’ve all been
passionate about the prospect of finding other unissued Baker recordings.

My inquiry with Frank bore fruit, as he was able to find two previously unissued studio sessions
in pristine condition from the KRO-NCRV archives recorded at VARA Studio 2 in Hilversum, the
Netherlands on April 10 and November 9, 1979 respectively. It was thrilling to find these two
sessions where we can hear Chet in fantastic form with a great cast of supporting musicians. It
represents a welcome addition to Chet’s discography, as he spent much of his time in Europe; a
delightful find that we all felt strongly deserved a chance to see the light of day. I want to thank
my dear friends, Jordi and Carlos, for being behind this production from the start and making it
possible. Messrs. Soley and Agustín have championed the legacy of Chet Baker and they are
passionate about supporting Chet’s music by continuing to seek out and issue these kinds of
important unissued recordings. I’m very proud of this release and the way that we told the
story of this important music.

I’d like to acknowledge and thank the acclaimed Dutch recording engineer Marc Broer for his
meticulous attention to detail working from the original tapes. Thanks also to the legendary
Bernie Grundman for mastering the audio on vinyl, which he has done for other Chet Baker
releases as well, going back to the 1970s. We’ve also assembled some really great voices for
this package, including a main liner notes essay by Dutch scholar Jeroen de Valk, producer
notes from both Frank Jochemsen and me, the original session producer Edwin Rutten,
musicians on the recordings — Phil Markowitz, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse and Eric Ineke, plus
interviews with Randy Brecker, Enrico Rava and Enrico Pieranunzi.

I think this production is a worthy and well-deserved contribution to the recorded legacy of
Chet Baker. I hope you’ll all enjoy it as much as we do.

ZEV FELDMAN
Montgomery Village, Maryland
September 2022
 
+++
 
Chet Baker in Holland, 1979
By Jeroen De Valk
 
Almost 35 years after his passing, Chet Baker continues to reach our hearts and our heads. He
touches our hearts with his mellow sound and melodic approach and enters our heads with his
adventurous improvisations. Despite a limited repertoire, he made the tunes sound fresh at
every gig. It was like he had a built-in repeat detector which made him take another turn
whenever he threatened to repeat himself.

And yet, the quality of his work could be wildly inconsistent. For example, in 1979, when these
sessions were recorded, he missed gigs once in a while; he simply didn’t show up. But on
October 4 of that year, he recorded enough material for three great albums at just one concert
in Copenhagen. (That fantastic night was with guitarist Doug Raney and bassist Niels-Henning
Ørsted Pedersen, and the whole gig was recorded for Steeplechase.)

Altogether, 1979 was a fruitful year for Chet. About ten recordings from that year were issued
during his lifetime; later, some live sessions were also released. Looking back at his career from
the mid-’70s on, he was most reliable when he could do a tour with a regular band. Between
these tours, he would usually stay in Europe and sometimes get lost; nobody would know
where he was hanging out for a few days until he turned up again, playing in some small dive,
as if everything were fine.

Two European tours in the ‘70s were with American pianist Phil Markowitz (b. 1952): one in
November and December of 1978 and the other in March and April of 1979. For the second
tour, Chet invited bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse (b. 1952) from Belgium, who had done most of
the first tour, and he had drummer Charlie Rice (1920 - 2018) come over from the U.S.A. He had
worked with Jean-Louis a few years before and would keep calling him almost until the end of
his life.

Chet knew Charlie Rice even earlier: the latter was his drummer in New York in 1964 and ‘65,
when Chet had returned to the U.S.A. after a chaotic European stay, which included a year and
a half in an Italian prison. With Charlie, he recorded the renowned album Baby Breeze (1965)
and a session issued as The Most Important Jazz Album of 1964/65. (Of course, the title was not
Chet’s idea, but came from his manager at that time.)

This was also the band Chet brought to a Hilversum studio on April 10, 1979. It was not just a
horn and a rhythm section. His sidemen listened to him and he listened to them. Markowitz
summed up the music and the atmosphere in an interview with Chet’s Choice magazine, April
1993: “He was extremely attentive to the music. In the truest form of jazz playing, it’s not a
show, but really about the interaction between the musicians. He was certainly one of the most
attentive listeners I’ve ever seen on the bandstand ... His style and demeanor on the bandstand
were so precise and defined that if you had any sensitivity, you knew what to do. He got the
best out of musicians. He was very unselfish. His solos weren’t very long. He would let you
stretch out to the max.”
As with the previous tour, part of the repertoire was scaled-down arrangements of the tunes he
had recorded for a significant album in the U.S.: You Can’t Go Home Again (1977). (The
recording sessions for this album would be a massive inspiration for Chet, although only a part
of the music was issued on the original LP.) In Hilversum, these were “The Best Thing for You”
and “Oh, You Crazy Moon.”

In the powerful performance of “Nardis” and the mellow version of “Blue Gilles,” Chet sounds
in good shape. We hear him singing “Oh, You Crazy Moon” as a soulful ballad, playing a fast
“The Best Thing For You” as if it’s no big deal at all and blowing a bluesy “Down.” There is no
display of mere virtuosity, no superfluous notes, no fancy licks. It’s just four guys working with
200 percent concentration and dedication. Jazz doesn’t get much better than this.

Chet returned to Hilversum to record again for KRO radio on November 9 of that year. This
time, he turned up late and without sheet music for his sidemen. He should have brought some,
as he was about to record some rare material with a local pick-up band. For whatever reason,
he insisted on doing four tunes he wasn’t playing regularly at that time, apart from “Old Devil
Moon.” “Luscious Lou” harkened back to his band in 1956 with tenor saxophonist Phil Urso,
who wrote the tune. “My Ideal” was on the ever-selling album Chet Baker Sings (from the
mid-’50s) but wouldn’t become a regular part of his repertoire until a few years after this
Hilversum gig. “Candy” was even more of a rarity.

The mood was very relaxed; during “Luscious Lou,” the trumpet solo seemed to lose
momentum a couple of times. But in “My Ideal,” every note — be it on trumpet or sung —
sounds like the definitive one. According to Markowitz, Chet was “one of the most lyrical
players ever. His music was so sparse that if you took one note away, it would destroy the line.”
“Candy” highlights his scat vocals, and “Old Devil Moon” is another up-tempo tune that doesn’t
seem hectic.

This second studio session “only” resulted in some twenty minutes of recorded music, as Chet
needed quite some time to explain to the musicians what he wanted. Producer Edwin Rutten
and drummer Eric Ineke describe more about this night elsewhere in this album package. The
problem was that Chet couldn’t name any chord. He could read and notate music, but he had
never bothered to learn to decipher chords symbols. Instead, he improvised by ear, evenin
harmonically advanced and challenging material. As another sideman, bassist Jon Burr, once
put it: “He claimed not to know a C7 from a hole in the ground, but he heard it and heard more
in it than most.”

Chesney Henry Baker Jr. (1929 - 1988) was born in an unlikely place: a farm outside Yale,
Oklahoma. His mother Vera (1910 - 2002) went to work in a local perfumery, while his dad
Chesney Henry Sr. (1906 - 1967) was originally a country-and-western musician. From the
recession of the ‘30s onward, he had to find other jobs and was, according to his son, a failure
in each one of them. Chet, Jr. was Chesney, Sr.’s and Vera’s only child.
Although Chet, Jr. lost a front tooth at age 13, he started playing the trumpet. Essential to his
development, he told me, was “instrument training class” at junior high school, where he
learned the non-pressure method: blowing long notes without pushing the mouthpiece to the
lips. This would come in handy when he had to learn to play the trumpet again with false teeth.
In the end, he got dentures in the second half of 1968 or early ‘69. Now finally, he could play on
two front teeth. But it took a few years before he could play an entire night.

In August 1966, he was beaten up in the Fillmore District in San Francisco; it could have resulted
from a conflict with a dealer. He kept on recording and performing, initially not too badly.
Baker spent half of his adult years in Europe. First as an army musician in Berlin, from 1946 to
‘48, then as a celebrated trumpeter from 1955 into ‘56 and as a wandering musician with what
euphemistically is called “personal problems” from 1959 through ‘64. In 1975, he returned to
Europe and after some moving back and forth would spend his last ten years almost exclusively
there.

He loved to reminisce about his gigs as a young man in the U.S. with Charlie Parker, Gerry
Mulligan’s famous quartet and his own band with pianist Russ Freeman. But in Europe, he said
repeatedly, he found more gigs and a more respectful audience. To this may be added the fact
that the European public tended to be more patient when he missed gigs or showed up in no
condition to play. In his last decade, it looks like he finally had burned his boats as far as
America was concerned. His friends, musicians, fans and various landlords were usually
Europeans.

Back home, he was forgotten. When the ‘documentary’ Let’s Get Lost by the American director
Bruce Weber was premiered in the U.S. in 1989, the soundtrack was successfully promoted as
Chet’s last recording and Weber as the man who rediscovered an out-of-work drug addict. In
reality, Weber was late in rediscovering a musician with a busy touring and recording schedule.
And he was early in recording Chet for the last time. Most scenes with Chet were shot in a few
weeks, early ‘87. The trumpeter had a busy year to go after they met for the last time.

The highlight of this successful last year was a Japanese tour in June 1987, which resulted in
some spectacular live recordings. His heavenly music there had a somewhat prosaic
background. While touring Japan — as well as the Scandinavian countries — Chet couldn’t bring
any drugs. He had to stick to methadone, which prevented him from getting sick. He didn’t like
methadone, as it gave him no ‘high,’ but it was great for his chops. A trumpet makes
considerable physical demands on a player, who must be in good physical condition to play
well.

His playing was at its best when he was on methadone for at least a few days. Or when both
heroin and methadone were at his disposal and he didn’t have to travel much. Chet loved to
play concerts, but abhorred being “on the road.” We can be sure the KRO recordings were
made when he knew what to consume at what time, to be in good shape wherever he had to
perform. In such periods, he created his own home — he had no fixed address in his last decade
— where he felt at ease: wherever the audience listened, the musicians understood him and
the sound engineers didn’t bother him was, in effect, his home. Then, he could concentrate and
the music would just flow — from his mind directly to his horn.

That was the only relevant connection for him. The rest didn’t matter. I could now start
imagining some secret, distant place where he found divine inspiration. But Chet was
straightforward in this respect. When I asked my idol in ‘87 about “the secret of your sound,”
he said, “Actually, it’s no secret. I play a lot, and I have a clear idea about the way I want to
sound.”

When the trumpet player Tom Kirkpatrick came to him for lessons, Chet replied that lessons
weren’t necessary, but that he could give some advice. Chet Baker’s instructions for playing the
trumpet were reduced to just these three rules (as quoted in Chet’s Choice magazine, May,
1993): “1) You have to figure out in your head what it is you want to play; 2) then you have to
figure out where that is on the horn; and 3) you can’t settle for anything less on the horn than
what is in your head.”
 
Jeroen de Valk (b. 1958) is a journalist, writer and musician. Since its first edition in 1989, his
biography about Chet Baker has been published in six languages. www.jeroendevalk.nl

+++
 
Finding Chet Baker’s VARA Studio 2 Recordings
 
About five years ago, Zev Feldman asked me if I could find any good Dutch recordings of Chet
Baker. We had previously worked together on great album productions by pianist Bill Evans and
on the recordings of tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins that I found in the Dutch Jazz Archive.
These were released worldwide via the Resonance Records label from late 2020.

I am a great fan of Chet Baker’s music, so Zev’s question remained in the back of my mind,
although I was not very optimistic because many of his Dutch recordings had already been
released and they are unfortunately not all of high quality. I thought that, if very good
recordings still existed somewhere, they would surely have already been found and published.

In the spring of 2018, I was working on a major research project on Dutch jazz recordings. As
part of that project, I visited radio producer Lex Lammen (1938-2018), who had made jazz
programs for the Dutch KRO radio for many years. I learned a lot that afternoon as Lex talked
about his own jazz adventures. He also told me about the recording sessions with Chet Baker
for the programs Nine o’clock Jazz and KRO’s Jazz Connection in the late seventies and eighties.
He was adamant that all the tapes of those recordings had, unfortunately, been erased for re-
use years ago. Lex gave me a binder with extensive notes of all the recording sessions made in
the period 1977-1993. Sadly, Lex Lammen died three months after my visit to him.
Two years later I started working with Lex’s binder. Using my own ingenious little search engine,
which has proven very effective, I was able to find two sessions by Chet Baker, both recorded in
1979 in brilliant stereo for the radio program, Nine o’clock Jazz.

As if this weren’t enough: the music was recorded in the fantastic VARA studio 2 by the brilliant
technician Jim Rip and, moreover, all this music is of high artistic quality and has never been
released before!

These sessions were produced by singer, drummer, actor and presenter Edwin Rutten (b. 1943).
He is a good jazz friend of mine, but also a true childhood hero. Not just a hero for me (I was
born in 1982), but for everyone who grew up in the Netherlands in the seventies and eighties
and watched the children’s program De film van Ome Willem between 1974 and 1989. It may
not mean anything to those who aren’t Dutch, but Rutten influenced several generations in his
role of Uncle Willem. He also played and sang in the educational kids’ program Het Klokhuis and
has a serious career as a jazz singer and teacher. He made albums with the well-known Dutch
arranger-composer Rogier van Otterloo (1941-1988) and Harry Bannink (1929-1999). Much less
known is his work as a producer of many jazz recordings. That is going to change with this
release in the year Edwin turns eighty. Further on in this album package, you can read his
memories of recording with one of the greatest musical storytellers who ever lived. And you
will find the photos from April 1979 of Chet and Edwin that I found after a long search. It’s a
great birthday celebration that these beautiful recordings are now going to be released into the
world.

As Lex Lammen himself wrote in the KRO-gids at the time, ”The result is astonishing for those
who want to listen.” I wish he could still hear it himself but, unfortunately, that is not possible.
However, this music deserves to be heard by everyone.

I wish you lots of fun and listening pleasure as a dedicated listener.

FRANK JOCHEMSEN
producer and researcher

+++
 
Recollections of the Recording Sessions
 
The beauty of being a jazz producer is that you can give yourself birthday presents even when
it’s not your birthday. Gifts in the form of the best jazz from the Netherlands and from way
beyond. A few names of artists I did recordings with: Bill Holman, Bob Brookmeyer, Mel Lewis,
Clark Terry, Steve Gray, Alan Downey, Norma Winstone, John and Jeff Clayton, John Taylor,
Tony Williams, Chris Hunter, Kenny Wheeler, Martial Solal, Madeline Bell, Georgie Fame and
many, many more. And . . . Chet Baker.
The first recording session: Chet Baker with Markowitz, Rassinfosse and Rice. The musicians
were a little late. Of course, this “can happen”. Phil wanted coffee and coffee came. No
problem. Drum pedal squeaks? We’ll fix it. There was no mat for Charles Rice’s drum kit
(probably borrowed in the Netherlands). We found a mat. A producer’s first task is to create the
atmosphere and climate so the guys can perform to the best of their abilities. Chet sat on a
chair, wrapped his legs around each other, turned away and — I happened to notice — applied
adhesive to his dentures. Relaxed atmosphere. Minor sound check.

“Tape is running, recording five beats after now.”

I’ll discuss the pieces in the order they were recorded.

 
Nardis
The first tones start unwrapping my birthday present. With all my recordings, I take stock of
whether the technician and I are satisfied musically and with the recording. In this case, the
super technician was Jim Rip who was a joy to work with. If there is a serious musical
imperfection, I ask the musicians if they can do it again. They are usually happy to oblige. After
each take, I said to Chet and the guys: “We love it, are you happy?” They were. They didn’t have
to do anything over. Always spot on.
 
The Best Thing for You
They went wild. Grandmasters.

Blue Room
And that Phil Markowitz. I am so happy about him. I had never seen him live before.
 
Beautiful Black Eyes
Bossa feel. What a theme and the way Chet captured the mood, the melancholy of the piece.
Moments when music can work as a medicine chest.
 
Oh, You Crazy Moon
But now, down to the studio floor. To Chet, smiling: “Mr. Baker, dear Chet, you have to sing!”
And then those soft eyes.

It was to be “Oh, You Crazy Moon.” His first notes — listening to the master right now brings
tears to my eyes. It touches the whole palette of my own feelings. That’s no highfalutin’ talk,
that’s how I felt then and how it still feels now. This survives time. And then the scat. The
microphone on the uvula. I want a faithful sound. Dry. Don’t make it pretty with reverb. “Saliva
on the corners of the mouth” is what I always say. The last words of the song are “You broke
my heart.” And that’s what Chet did with his men: they broke my heart.
 
Down
That bass is superb! What a drive. You can hear the individual notes. And so easy. Transcending
the material. I always say — simple is complicated.
 
Our recording time is making progress. I head for the studio floor with a satisfied mind. Chet
seems to think it’s enough. That’s fine by me; we shouldn’t push it.

I had an idea on the spot. This is how the conversation went: “Mister Baker. I have an idea.
Listen. You start on the trumpet, “the man and his horn alone”, then you start singing the piece,
then scat, then Phil, then the last chorus singing and then at the end “the man and his horn
alone”.

Silence.

He looked at me again with those soft eyes and said “I do not know such a piece”. I said nothing
but laughed on the inside. He turned around slightly. I saw him looking at his watch. “OK.”
I went to the control room. And the opening, solo, became “the man and his horn alone”.
 
Blue Gilles
Unfortunately, I didn’t get the arrangement I proposed and the circle was not completed with
the trumpet solo at the end. But I was very happy.

I asked if the musicians wanted to listen to any of it. Chet only wanted to hear the opening
cadenza of “Blue Gilles” and that was that. An unforgettable evening.
 
The second recording session, more than six months later with Chet, Frans, Victor and Eric.

I still had great memories of the previous session and so I was looking forward to it all the more.
I asked pianist Frans Elsen for this session not only because he was one of the best, but because
he was the best for this job. He chose his own rhythm section. Drummer Eric Ineke sums up his
own experience of the evening well in his contribution to this album package.

This was the first and only time that I experienced such a difficult recording session. The trio
wanted to make the best of it. Chet came on his own from a great distance away in his car. He
may have been tired before he set foot in the studio. Or he wasn’t feeling well or was annoyed
that he didn’t have sheet music with him.

The music. Again, in the order of recording.

 
Luscious Lou
The first four notes by Chet, I felt at home. Second chorus, the bass remained excruciatingly in
two, rumble, third chorus bass in two, fourth chorus bass in four, boom! There we go. And the
great cymbals and subtle hi-hat of Eric. You never feel the need to tie the drummer’s left hand
to his back. An obliging trio, playing together by ear. Armchair swing.
 
My Ideal
Vocal. A piano intro. The microphone on Chet’s uvula. Technician Jim Rip again, as always. A
modest accompaniment. Playing cautiously, handbrake on, but fantastic.
 
Candy
Vocal. Another piano intro by Frans sets the tone. And how! Delicious brushes by Eric. And then
the scat. Whew. If this piece had been the only result of the whole evening, I would have gone
had had plenty to drink with the trio afterwards and said “There might have been more in it,
but we have ‘Candy’ for eternity!”
 
Old Devil Moon
Chet insisted on playing this piece. There were problems with the harmonies. Musicians often
have their preferences about the harmonies to be played and Frans Elsen always had his own
ideas about that. Apparently, so did Chet. The atmosphere deteriorated. How do you act as a
producer in this situation? In the first instance, I thought it was a musical problem between the
musicians. I saw Frans, hunched over the piano, writing the part, he was upset about it but
remained constructive. I mutter: “Fine, Frans”.

Then a little smile at Chet, because if Chet stopped, everything would stop, as it would if Frans
stopped. I didn’t want to pull rank, or play the boss in this inflammable situation. The musical
result: Victor Kaihatu at full steam, pushing and shoving together with Eric. Good musicians
can’t play badly.
 
Chet thought 4 pieces were enough. So be it.
I did think it was a pity, as we had such a bunch of great musicians in the studio. Nobody knows
that brains are pulverized in advance or enroute in many a production. It’s the end result that
counts. That appeared to be the case again. So listen and act like you know nothing about how
it came about and if you do know the background information, listen to what the music has to
say. My compliments to Frank Jochemsen who unearthed the tapes and photos with Chet. Like
a terrier, he got his teeth into this project. And for Marc Broer, who made an audio master
based on the recording of that great Jim Rip, who is unfortunately no longer with us.

“Wanna cry, wanna croon

 Wanna laugh like a loon
 It’s that old devil moon”
 
EDWIN RUTTEN
August 2022

+++

Eric Ineke On Recording with Chet Baker at VARA Studio 2

 
When I came home from a gig one night in autumn 1979, my wife told me that pianist Frans
Elsen had called to ask if I could play on a radio recording with Chet Baker. That sounded
exciting. Of course, I had heard many stories about him, so I was very curious about how this
session would go. Added to that was the fact that my accompanists — both Frans Elsen and
bassist Victor Kaihatu — had very “special” personalities. If you add someone like Chet Baker,
some diplomacy is required. The recording session was planned for November 9 in VARA Studio
2 in Hilversum. Producer Edwin Rutten had asked us to be there at 7 pm. Everyone was there
on time, except Chet Baker himself. That was not a good start and Frans Elsen was already
getting grumpy. As a gifted pianist, arranger and composer who had already spent countless
hours in the Hilversum studios, the rule “on time is on time” was highly important and also
applied to Victor Kaihatu.

At last, at around 7.45 pm, Mr. Cool appeared with the announcement that he was sorry to be
late and that he had unfortunately forgotten his sheet music. That wasn’t very sensible as Chet
had a few pieces in mind that weren’t obvious and it didn’t help our communication for the rest
of the evening. The session finally started around 8:30 pm with the first piece entitled “Luscious
Lou” by tenor saxophonist Phil Urso. Based on the chords of the Sonny Rollins composition
“Doxy,” we recorded this piece in two takes. With each following piece, Chet tried to explain
what he wanted from the accompaniment. He played everything by ear, but Frans wanted to
support him with the best harmonies. Unfortunately, Chet could not tell him, so Frans had to
find out everything himself. He wouldn’t accept second best. Chet tried to sit at the piano with
one finger, but Frans Elsen wasn’t happy about that. Frans liked clarity and in “My Ideal” and
“Candy,” Frans put down a few intros, which made Chet very happy. In addition, he gave him all
the space he needed in his accompaniment. With Victor’s steady beat next to me, I felt very
comfortable and, when Chet started singing, I felt he was telling me a story personally because I
was playing with headphones on. An unforgettable moment.

In “Old Devil Moon” by Burton Lane, finding the right chords for Frans was quite hard. The form
of the piece is tricky anyway and, all in all, it took quite some studio time. Finally, in his
accompaniment, you can hear how Frans gives Chet all the support he needs to play a very
relaxed solo in this up-tempo piece. By now, it was already half past ten and, after the last take
of “Old Devil Moon,” Chet came up to me to ask how many pieces we had recorded. I told him
that there were now four pieces on tape. Chet looked at me and said: “Four pieces should be
enough for a jazz program” and his trumpet disappeared into the case.

Producer Edwin Rutten stood next to him and I could see from his bewildered look that he
disagreed. In the end, a program of about fifty minutes had to be recorded, and we were only
just halfway through. Edwin, of course, had to justify this to the broadcasters and tried his best
to convince Chet to take his trumpet out again. But Chet wouldn’t think about it and spoke the
legendary words: “I am sorry, but I have sold you my time and my talent”. He thanked us kindly
for the accompaniment and disappeared like a thief into the dark November night.
 
ERIC INEKE
+++

A Real Education
Phil Markowitz On Playing With Chet Baker
 
I moved to New York in ‘76 and hit the scene really quickly. I was working with a guitar player,
Jack Wilkins, and his bass player, Jon Burr. Jack was doing a lot of gigs and I was doing all kinds
of gigs with all kinds of bands. So one day, I got a call from Jon and he asked if I wanted to play
with Chet Baker. Of course, I said yes. The gig was at Strykers, a club on the Upper West Side
not far from my pad. There was no piano. I had to drag my Rhodes down the steps. That band
was Jeff Brillinger, Jon Burr and Roger Rosenberg on baritone. That was my first gig with Chet.
That’s how the whole thing started.

Playing with Chet at the ripe old age of 27 was an education. I’d studied the music for a long
time and at that time, I was starting to get some commercial work, jingles and things, so I was
pretty busy. Then Chet offered me these tours, which were pretty long. I said to myself, “Man,
when am I going to get a chance to play with somebody who played with Bird? This is going to
be the thing for me.” It ended up being a real education on a lot of fronts.

As an accompanist, I really learned how to comp properly for someone who was in the very
precise harmonic zone that Chet was in. He came from players like Charlie Parker and Clifford
Brown. I’m not saying his sound was like Clifford’s but his harmonic sense in terms of playing
inside of a very strict set of changes was non-chromatic. Basically, if you played a wrong chord
behind him, it was death and it was embarrassing for you. But also, it was death for him
because it made him sound bad. So you really had to listen.

Of course, I was getting into playing outside and was heavily influenced by Trane and Herbie
[Hancock] and McCoy [Tyner] in those days, so I really had to rein it in. I had to fit. That’s part of
the job of the accompanist, to fit in. Chet was great for that. I also learned how to listen from
him because some leaders (not all, but some) are a little bit uninvested in the music. They’ll be
walking around or doing something else when somebody’s soloing. Chet always sat in the crook
of the piano. He always played sitting down and he didn’t budge from that position for the
whole set. So when someone else was playing, he’d just be sitting here looking down. You could
just tell he was listening. Intently. That was really great.

He also taught me to get my nose out of the music, which was good. Chet’s time feel was like a
rope. It was so precise and so pristine. It was like a rope because it just didn’t vary, but it was so
beautiful. And the time feel was so steady, but he was on the back end of the beat almost
always. like Dexter [Gordon], just to draw an analogy for sax and the band would pick it up. On
this recording Charlie [Rice] is right in the pocket where Chet is.

For a young player who liked to play bright and who was listening to Chick Corea and McCoy
Tyner, this was like, “Wow, how do I learn how to play in this pocket?” especially at these
super, super, super slow tempos. Chet would call off a tune: “One . . . two.” You’re just dying,
waiting for two. He loved to play those slow tempos. “Nardis” is incredibly slow on this
recording. And the ballads? Forget about it. We had drummers like Jimmy Lovelace, Leo
Mitchell and Charlie. These guys who played really relaxed, kind of in a Jimmy Cobb vein, but
sometimes even farther behind. I really had to rein in my youthful energy to fit in. And it was
just great.

Chet was very kind. He was soft-spoken; not a huge conversationalist. We really didn’t hang out
and talk that much. When we were on the road, after the gig, he’d just go up to his room.
Sometimes I’d see him and we’d talk about some stuff, but there wasn’t a lot of conversation. I
viewed it more as a mentorship where I was learning from him, especially on the bandstand,
about comportment and how to be cool. But he was very, very kind to me. Very nice.

Chet had young cats playing with him. When he came back to New York, he could have played
with anybody. I did a week with him at Fat Tuesdays with Ron Carter and Ben Riley, which was a
dream for me. But in general, he had younger cats. He was very patient with us. He could be
funny and acerbic at times and crack jokes. On the road, the way he operated was a lesson in
itself, just how cool he was. But he was amazing. Amazing. Just absolutely chill. Just he could
totally deflect whatever came his way and just go about his business. Just totally amazing.

One time, we were going into Berlin on the train. It was still East Germany then, so you’d get
the train maybe in Dresden. We were heading through and we passed through a checkpoint.
Next thing we know, there’s the Stasi, the East German police, on the train with machine guns
and German shepherds. Chet’s just sitting there relaxed, rolling a cigarette. They’re asking for
passports. Chet’s unfazed, but I’m shocked. It’s unnerving to see guys with automatic weapons
come onto a train, especially after you’ve been cruising around Europe loose for the previous
two weeks. Chet was just a cool character. Very cool.

It was an incredible honor to play with him. I’m grateful for the lessons I learned with him back
then, because at the beginning, it wasn’t exactly where my musical focus was. I was in a much
more progressive direction in the early ‘70s and moving forward. Not long afterward, I got with
Dave Liebman, which was my lifelong dream. But playing with Chet was just a great experience.
And these recordings surfacing . . . I thought I’d only done four records with him. Now, I think
there are ten or eleven, and this recording is really great. Chet Baker’s fans are going to be
absolutely thrilled because he sounds unbelievable on this recording. It’s just incredible how
great he sounds.
 
Excerpted from an interview conducted by Zev Feldman on July 24, 2022

+++

A Master of Melody
Jean-Louis Rassinfosse Remembers Chet Baker
 
I met Chet through his friend, Jacques Pelzer, the alto saxophone player. He introduced me to
Chet at a concert in ‘76. Soon afterward, we played a couple of gigs here in Belgium. Then he
had a three-week tour in Sicily at the end of ‘76 and he asked me to join the band there.
After that tour, I had to do my military service. Chet was shocked. “No, let me write to the
king!” He wanted to write to the king of Belgium to get me out of my military service! Of
course, it didn’t happen and I had to go. I served ten months. When I went, Chet said, “OK,
when you’re done, you’ll join me again.”

I worked with Chet from ‘76 to ‘85 in different settings. I was young, so it was a formative
experience to be with such an artist. He was a very quiet person, not an extrovert, so every
word he said was as if God were speaking.

Chet was such a master of melody. When he was improvising, I tried my best to learn from him.
I remember when we’d drive to a gig, we’d sing songs, bass lines. He’d sing bass lines to me. I’d
improvise. We liked to sing. I could scat, so for hours we’d share tunes that way. He was one of
the best teachers I ever had.

We played in Brussels in ‘85. The show was the Toots Thielemans Quartet and the Chet Baker
Trio, both groups playing together at the end. Toots Thielemans was also very sensitive; he
expressed a lot of emotion when he played. Having those two masters of emotion two meters
away from me on the stage was a big lesson for me. In one second, Chet would come and sit
and the atmosphere would instantly become religious. People were on the edge of their seats
waiting for the first note. The emotion of the music was just as if one were in church.

In that kind of setting, Chet always focused. He was right next to me; we played quite close
together on stage. I’d hear him imitating a hi-hat with his lips just behind us. Nobody heard it
but us. He was just showing that he was in the music, even when it was just us playing. He was
not like that trumpet player who, after his solo, would go off to the side and oil his valves or
something when the other musicians were playing. He was always concentrating on the music
we created together.

Phil Markowitz was a fantastic piano player. He wrote the tune Toots Thielemans recorded with
Bill Evans, “Sno’ Peas.” Phil was a master pianist. He had a modern approach, with counter
rhythms and lots of other subtleties. He was busy with odd meters, with harmonies, but he was
also very nice company. The way he accompanied Chet never got in the way. He just helped;
that’s what Chet needed. He loved a piano player who just added something but who didn’t
need to show all ten fingers all the time.

Charlie Rice was good for Chet. Chet was always looking for people who could provide energy
without being loud. It’s hard to find that with a drummer. Guys think, “Let’s play energetic,”
and they’re banging all around. They confuse energy and sound. Charlie didn’t do that.

Chet taught me to be strict with rhythm. For me the most important quality in Chet’s playing
was rhythmic placement. The soloist has to swing, not only the rhythm section. Chet’s
placement of phrases was impeccable.
Chet’s absolute commitment to music was another lesson. We played the same tunes nearly
every night. Chet had a big repertoire — a list of at least 20 standards that we would play every
night or every two nights. To play the same tunes every night and still be creative, not to fall
into cliches or only play them the same way was challenging. This was important for me in
particular because Belgium is so small and you may play with different groups, but it’s always
the same audience. We couldn’t say, “We already played this yesterday, so we have to find
something new.” We didn’t need to find a new tune, we needed to find new ideas over the
same tune.

Chet’s playing is amazing on these tapes. He was in very good shape. He had good chops on
these recordings. It wasn’t always so. Being able to record with Chet Baker was an honor. I
learned half of what I know in music through Chet Baker. Of course, it was a first-hand lesson in
the difficulties of drug addiction, too, but that never affected the musical communication
between us. I just didn’t focus on it and I think that’s why Chet respected me. He knew I could
be trusted. A day in a musician’s life on tour is 22 hours together and only two hours of playing.
The rest is life. Being with Chet was for me a lesson for life.
 
Excerpted from an interview conducted by Zev Feldman on August 11, 2022

+++

Straight from the Heart

Randy Brecker Reminisces About Chet Baker
 
My father was a musician. He had an extensive record collection. He had the Gerry Mulligan
and Chet Baker record with “My Funny Valentine.” That was one of the first records I brought
up to my room when I started to play trumpet at eight or nine. I tried to emulate Chet’s playing
because “My Funny Valentine” was a ballad. He didn’t emphasize technique. I was just starting,
so I started with ballads. That was one of the records I started with.

The first time I heard Chet, he was playing at a seedy club in North Philly with Phil Urso on
tenor. Phil had a beautiful sound and never played an extra note when he didn’t have to. But it
was a depressing scene — a second-rate club and there were some plain clothes cops there.
Philly was a police state in those days.

I saw Chet many times after that. For a while, you’d see him around in New York between his
sojourns in Europe. He was playing a lot, hanging at the club. I got to know him pretty well
through Richie Beirach, who played with him. In Europe, Chet and I were sometimes on the
same show together. When he played, he was always wrapped around a chair. You never knew
if the next note was going to come out, but he could play all night. 

He’d play the first couple of notes, and you’d say to yourself, “How’s he going to make it?” He’d
be the first one to say, “Man, I haven’t been playing.” I remember talking to him once and he
said, “I could probably just get through about two tunes.” But lo and behold, I never saw his
chops give out on him. He’d wrap himself around that chair, point the horn to the floor, sing
some, always great, and just play a couple of sets.

He was a hard guy to peg. He didn’t freely hand out information. He usually had us start the
conversation. He liked to blend into the background if he was in a club hanging out. He just
communicated straight through his heart, no middle ground, and it was so filled with emotion,
pain, anguish, sadness . . .

I saw a 1959 video Chet did with Lars Gullin in Torino; he still played great. The trumpet sound
was lush and gorgeous with pain around the edges. He sang the same way. I was a big fan of his
singing. It was all connected.

In another video, he sang something like ten or eleven choruses of a standard, each chorus
completely different from the previous one. Never repeated himself as a singer, completely
improvised scat singing on the tune. He was special. There’s just no doubt about it.

He wasn’t a powerhouse trumpet player, but boy, he got to the heart of the instrument like
nobody else. You hear him and you want to take everything from his playing, his whole
conception, his sound, his melodic content. He was really an improviser. He played off the
melody and he played what he heard. To this day, I try to use all those elements. I try to keep
him and five or six other trumpet players in the back of my mind when I play. I especially try to
concentrate on playing less, rather than more. I am constantly using his example to try to get to
the core of the matter, get to the essence.

Chet was one of the most melodic musicians we ever had along with people like Miles and Stan
Getz; guys in that class. He had a dramatic life with all the troubles that, in a way, added to his
emotional content when he played. All his pain and anguish and the loneliness he must have
felt, it’s all in there in his sound. I try to keep that part of his whole concept when I play. Many
trumpet players do, he’s so unique.

I learned so much from him, both what to do to be a musician and what not to do. He’s been a
big part of my life. It was always a pleasure to be in his presence during those few years that he
was in New York. He liked to come out and hear music. So, he was around. I treasure those
moments I spent with him and I know everyone felt the same way.
 
Excerpted from an interview conducted by Zev Feldman on August 10, 2022

+++
 
Pure Beauty
A Conversation With Enrico Rava
 
I first heard Chet Baker’s music on the album, Gerry Mulligan Quartet, a marvelous record from
1952. I was 16, but I’d been a jazz fan since I was seven, when I first heard Bix Beiderbecke and
Jelly Roll Morton. That record was my introduction to modern jazz. It was so beautiful, but also
easy to understand. For a European, it had the logic of a Bach fugue with the soul of jazz. Even
today, it was hearing that quartet from 1952 that remains one of the most beautiful moments
of my life as a listener.

Back then, Chet was playing differently from how he played three or four years later. It was
unconventional, modern. Take Chet’s solo on “Bark for Barksdale.” After a beautiful, very
traditional Gerry Mulligan solo, Chet starts playing so far ahead that he sounded to me like Don
Cherry, but with more technique. Amazing.

From then on, I bought everything of Chet’s I could find, his quartet with Russ Freeman and
everything else. Then in 1956, he made a beautiful record called Chet Baker & Crew. At that
point, he wasn’t playing with Gerry Mulligan anymore. He was more influenced by Miles. And it
was more mature, and his chops were fantastic.

I saw Chet in Torino, where I’m from, in around ‘59. He played a concert with French sidemen.
Chet sounded beautiful. I kept going to hear him every time he was in Milano. I was very much
beginning as a trumpet player; I started very late. I bought my first trumpet at 18 and I learned
by myself. Even as a beginner, I was tremendously influenced by Chet and Miles.

Chet was arrested in Italy in 1960. He was in jail in Lucca for a year and a half. When he came
out, he formed a band with friends of mine — all Italians — particularly the drummer, Franco
Mondini, who was from Torino, too. He was four or five years older than me and was my best
friend. One day, Chet had a day off, so he came to Torino and stayed at Franco’s house. Franco
called me and said, “Enrico, Chet is here,” so I ran to his place and hung out with them all day.
When they went to play, I went with them. I could talk with him because after his time in jail,
he spoke pretty good Italian, which he learned in jail. From then on, for the rest of his life, we
were friends.

What made him special for me was the feeling that for him, every note was the last one; the
feeling that he was really speaking directly from his soul, directly from his brain. There was no
phrasing, no routine. It was always something different. It was pure beauty, all of his phrases.
Beautiful, beautiful phrases all the time. And it was moving. It spoke directly to my soul. It was
like Miles except Miles had a more dramatic sense. He built up a story, while Chet didn’t. Chet
just built little episodes of beauty.

Chet’s singing was so, so touching. He had a kind of disembodied teenager’s voice. I still listen
to those records today. On the first record with strings with Zoot Sims and Shelly Manne, Chet’s
phrases are so clear. It’s just beauty. It’s not like the routine phrasing of a typical jazz trumpet
player. No, he was creating beautiful melodies, which was the same thing Miles was doing at
the time, but Chet did it with his voice, too.

Around the time I met Chet, I began playing professionally and I’d run into Chet at festivals
around the world. We played a concert in Torino not long before he died, a big concert in a
beautiful theater packed with people. Then, about a month later, I was playing in Paris and
during the break somebody came to me and said, “Chet just died in Amsterdam.” That’s how I
found out.

Chet created pure beauty. Doing what he did, everyone loved him. There was no way you could
escape it. He was totally committed. He played music as if it was his last night in this world.
Every note he played was essential. He taught everybody not to play too many notes; to play
only the necessary notes. He was like João Gilberto: just play the necessary notes. That was his
contribution, for sure.
 
Excerpted from an interview conducted by Zev Feldman on August 8, 2022

+++
 
Reduced Me to Tears
Enrico Pieranunzi Talks About Chet Baker
 
I first heard Chet Baker’s sound when I was three or four years old. We had a 78 rpm record
player in our house. My father was a very good jazz guitar player who was very fond of Charlie
Christian and Django. He also used to buy jazz records, so I had a bunch of records at home
when I was a child. We had records by Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz and Lennie Tristano, and Chet
Baker and Gerry Mulligan. So Chet’s sound was in my head from a very young age.

I first played with Chet in 1979 when a promoter told me that Chet was in Italy and asked me to
come there with my trio to play with him. My trio then had Riccardo Del Fra on bass and
Roberto Gatto on drums. Chet was in very good shape. We played all standards. At the end of
the concert, I went to him and asked, “Chet, are you available to record with us?” I was
involved with a small label in Rome so I was able to organize projects for them. With his very
soft voice, in Italian, Chet replied, “Ci devo pensare”, meaning, “I have to think about it.” After a
week, he called me and said, “OK. Let’s record,” so in December of ‘79, we recorded for the first
time and made the album, Soft Journey. The concert and the recording were my introduction to
playing with him. I was familiar with his music because of those records from my childhood, but
in the interim my musical approach had developed in other directions. Still, playing with Chet
was the turning point for me.

In ‘79, when I first met Chet, McCoy Tyner was my biggest musical influence. In those days, I
also paid attention to what Chick Corea was playing. I was influenced by bebop and hard bop
players — Bud Powell, Wynton Kelly, Herbie Hancock.

When I met Chet, everything turned upside down. I saw I had to cut to the essentials because
Chet’s phrasing was so essential, so amazingly lyrical, musical, smart, logical. I began to feel that
something was wrong with my playing. I had to change everything. I had to really go toward
what was truly essential.
That’s why, after meeting Chet, I gravitated toward Bill Evans. Chet was the guide who brought
me there; Chet brought me back to the melody. In my playing, I used to focus primarily on
chords. Chet didn’t think about chords. Chet’s phrasing was based on an unbelievably, strong
sense of intervals. On repeating a few notes. On spaces. Pauses.

For me, Chet was one of the smartest musicians. He had perhaps the deepest phrasing in the
history of jazz. Listening to the recordings on this set reduced me to tears, because Chet was
just so phenomenal. His ear was phenomenal. And he was very intelligent. His way of playing
was lyrical. It was intense, but it was also very intelligent.

Chet had another gift besides his ear: tempo. He had an unbelievable sense of tempo. We
played many concerts together without drums. No problem. He could play without drums.
Actually, sometimes he preferred to play without drums. And drummers who played with him
really had a very tough time because they really had to reduce things down to their most
essential. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work.

I always tell students in my master classes that transcribing a solo by Chet, or learning his solos,
is one of the best lessons to understand how jazz phrasing works. I always regretted that there
weren’t many transcriptions of Chet’s solos available. Recently though, I discovered a website
that posts transcriptions of his solos and also transcriptions of his scat singing. That’s a great
resource. Chet established a kind of grammar. His phrasing is of unbelievable artistic value. But
as I used to do when I was playing — I mean when he was playing close to me — I felt as if I
were in a cloud of music. And I stole a lot from him. I stole the approach. I even stole the
pauses, the way he played the pauses. Chet had a kind of strength. He was so musical, he kept
you waiting for the next note, even when he wasn’t playing. That was magic. So, I stole
everything possible from him.

I really am grateful for the chance I had to meet him, to play a lot with him. He was a very
fragile human being. But yeah, he was just Chet. Just special. Special.
 
Excerpted from an interview conducted by Zev Feldman on August 12, 2022
 
 
+++
 
CHET BAKER trumpet, vocals   PHIL MARKOWITZ piano
JEAN-LOUIS RASSINFOSSE bass   CHARLES RICE drums
 
Recorded on April 10, 1979 at VARA Studio 2, Hilversum, the Netherlands
 
SIDE A
1. Beautiful Black Eyes  (9:12)   W. Shorter, L. Mcconnell
2. Oh, You Crazy Moon  (10:02)   J. Burke, J. Van Heusen
3. The Best Thing For You  (6:10)   I. Berlin
 
SIDE B
1. Blue Room  (16:15)   R. Rodgers, L. Hart
2. Down  (7:28)   M. Davis
 
SIDE C
1. Blue Gilles  (10:55)   C. Baker
2. Nardis  (8:41)   M. Davis
 
CHET BAKER trumpet, vocals   FRANS ELSEN piano
VICTOR KAIHATU bass   ERIC INEKE drums
 
Recorded on November 9, 1979 at VARA Studio 2, Hilversum, the Netherlands
 
SIDE D
1. Candy (5:41)   M. David, A. Kramer, J. Whitney
2. Luscious Lou (7:00)   P. Urso
3. My Ideal (5:37)   N. Chase, L. Robin, R.A. Whiting
4. Old Devil Moon (5:19)   E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, B. Lane
 
+++
 
Produced for release by ZEV FELDMAN and FRANK JOCHEMSEN
Executive Producers: JORDI SOLEY and CARLOS AGUSTÍN CALEMBERT
Associate Producer: ZAK SHELBY-SZYSZKO
Original recordings produced by EDWIN RUTTEN and LEX LAMMEN for KRO-NCRV
Original recording engineer: JIM RIP
Assistant engineer, November 9, 1979: MR. STELLINGWERF
Tape research: FRANK JOCHEMSEN
Original recordings licensed from KRO-NCRV
Mastering: MARC BROER, assisted by FRANK JOCHEMSEN at Live ConcertRecording, Landsmeer,
The Netherlands
LP mastering by BERNIE GRUNDMAN at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, California
Front and back cover photos by VERYL OAKLAND
Art direction: BURTON YOUNT
Album Graphics: GORDON H. JEE
Album Package Editor: JOHN KOENIG
Legal Counsel: JOEL WEINSTEIN
Photo research: ZEV FELDMAN, ZAK SHELBY-SZYSZKO and FRANK JOCHEMSEN
Project Assistance: MARTÍN ARIAS GOLDESTEIN
 
Special thanks to BAS AGTERBERG, HANS VAN DEN BERG and LILLIAN SMIT(Nederlands Instituut
voor Beeld en Geluid),PIETER BOERSMA, JAN BROUWER(Nederlands Jazz Archief), MARTIN
CLEAVER, LEX LAMMEN, EDWIN RUTTEN, FRANK WEIJERS (KRO-NCRV), BERTRAM DINGSHOFF,
JEROEN DE VALK, VERYL and ALEXIS OAKLAND, HANS HARZHEIM, CHRISTIAN ROSE, PAUL FRATI
(Fastimage), CYNTHIA SESSO(CTSIMAGES), MARION LELOIR, ERIC FACON, TOM COPI, RANDY
BRECKER, ENRICO RAVA, GUIDO GAITO, ENRICO PIERANUNZI, SYDNEY B. LANEX, Record Store
Day (MICHAEL KURTZ and CARRIE COLLITON)
 
Extra special thanks to the Chet Baker Estate, PHIL MARKOWITZ, JEAN-LOUIS RASSINFOSSE and
ERIC INEKE
 
Dedicated to the memories of CHET BAKER, FRANS ELSEN, VICTOR KAIHATU and CHARLES RICE