Chet Baker: Chet Baker in Tokyo [LIVE]
If I were to insist that everyone own certain CDs, this would be one of them. Chet Baker could play the trumpet in such a way that you would get tears in your eyes. Each note and the smooth transition between them, is a heartbreaking story mirrored by Chet’s own tragic story. (Chet was one of the “cool” jazz players in the late fifties, early sixties. He blew it all on heroin. He became one hell of a junkie. He had all his teeth knocked out by a dealer. He recorded albums for drug money. He cleaned up his act, started playing again with the phrasing of a world-weary, beaten man. Then he died by falling out of a window in Amsterdam. Why a movie hasn’t been made . . . I don’t know.)

My brother introduced me to Chet Baker in college. I listened to the CD he lent me over and over. I was entranced by the way Chet could play the trumpet and his breathy, sad voice. He sounded like a man who had seen too much, drank too much and nearly died too often.

I originally picked up this CD as an addendum to my Elvis Costello collection. I thought I was out of my Jazz phase. But, once I put this disc in I knew I was wrong. Hard, lonely nights would come and I would light some candles, put out the lights and just lay on the floor, letting Chet’s misery envelope me. I wallowed in his pain. I cried his tears. I would float in the darkness on a wave of endless, mournful melodies.