Customer Reviews

Chet Baker: Live at Ronnie Scott's

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The production quality of this obscure taping of a jazz legend's performance is remarkable. Even the interview of Chet is well-done. Several observations: The audience obviously came to hear these "marquee" performers and not Chet. Notice the applause levels. I imagine most of them had no idea who Chet Baker. But for a thirty-plus-year fan of Chet Baker this video was certainly a bargain. What a unique and wonderful musician. He is certainly on par with Armstrong, Gillespie and Davis.

This is Chet, this is jazz. This film is an honest look at Chet Baker the torn man and musical genius he was. The concert is broken into segments by interviews. To hear Chet reflect upon his own life is such a rare treasure. Van Morrison gives an interesting performance and Elvis Costello waxes sweet melody on the final two songs. Purchase this DVD. Take note of the weathered skin, the spit as it's drained from the valve, Chet's fingers as they manipulate the three punch keys, and of course, the music coming straight from the heart through the horn. Enjoy this film!

It was an amazing treat to hear and see Chet jam... it was exceptionally nice to hear him scat to "Just Friends" and play and sing as only Chet can. He will continue to be greatly missed! The video is simply done and the great price reflects that. It was also great to hear Van Morrison (was that a crumpled up cocktail napkin he was reading the lyrics from?)and Elvis Costello, and they performed well. Chet's backup (piano and stand-up bass) players were outstanding as well.

Chet Baker remains one of the most gifted Jazz performers of all time , Even under the effects of long time drug abuse , his playing and singing were just perfect. Elvis Costello joins Chet for an unforgettable medley including "I am Fool To Want You" "The Very Thought Of You" "You Don't Know What Love Is" also directs the Interview. A Collector's item

For anybody who is a devotee of Chet Baker's music, this disc will be worthwhile. One cautionary note, however; this is Chet during his last years, and the toll that his drug addiction and otherwise hard-living took is clearly evident. The interviews by a very sensitive and respectful Elvis Costello reveal a man of deep insight and intellect. Watching this DVD has made me all the more committed to trying to find more DVD's of Chet during his earlier years when his strength, subtlety and lungs were at their peak. Some reviewers took issue with the pieces sung by Van Morrison and Costello. I thought they were interesting and sincere homages to Chet.

From his haggard face, to his plaintive voice to the soulful sounds that drip from his horn, Chet Baker is jazz. He's lived the life and this performance captures so much. Even my kids (teenagers) were mermerized by this dvd.

Chet's playing is the essence of the jazz sound. From his airy articulations, to his sweet mellow blue scale runs, and finally his dark, fragile sound, this is jazz. Highly recommended!

I have been a fan of Chet since the mid 50's and found the video to be very interesting and entertaining. I do however wish that somewhere on the video the piano and bass players names were mentioned. There excellent playing helps make the session complete and contributes to its success. This is a must for all Baker fans.

Recorded a couple of years before Chet's flight (off a balcony) from this world, this date catches Chet in the mid '80s a couple of years after I'd last heard him live. His playing is weaker, but his mental acuity, memory, and physical appearance are surprisingly vibrant. He was late for the set when I heard him, only to learn later that his pianist had found him in his room, passed out, with a needle in his arm. But he appeared, and the first tune of the evening's three sets was, appropriately, "The Thrill Is Gone" (my wife is perpetually frustrated by my ability to remember details such as this 25 years later while continuing to lose my glasses, wallet, and car keys on a daily basis).

This is, additionally, the best music--visually or aurally--that I've heard recorded at Ronnie Scott's, frequently a warning to "stay away" ("Sonny Stitt at Ronnie Scott's" was an especially unfortunate release, the late Shelly Manne set has too much electronics, etc.). The program, the musicianship, the reproduction are all first-rate, and if Chet carefully selects and limits his spots, he does so with a canny knack of sensing his limitations and not attempting to go beyond them.

Chet, as was his wont at this time, is seated--but on a stool instead of a seat with supporting back (as a pianist, I learned long ago to ignore the bench and, especially for those 4-hour dance jobs, immediately case the place for a chair with back). The shots of his facial expression, even before he plays a note (almost suggesting he's questioning whether he'll be able to pull it off yet one more time, are priceless--visual music. Chet's hair is combed, he's groomed, he looks "clean" and together. The interspersed interview segments find him perfectly respectful, aware, responsive, thoughtful and reflective, and understandably elegiac, mourning not his own misfortunes but the sad state of jazz in the home of its birth ("Where are the clubs? Where can I find any place to work?") His eyes are alive and comprehending. His speaking/singing voice still maintains that adolescent ring.

It's seems remarkable (to me, at least) that he can play as much trumpet as he does with so few teeth (attributed to a gang beating but also said to be the all-too -familiar effects of the uppers, or "goof-balls," Chet was addicted to). As the set continues, more of his trumpet playing emerges in longer, inspired flights, a reminder of the enviable gift that still refused to desert him.

The film is almost as absorbing as the low-budget, resourceful gem of a film biopic of him made by Bruce Weber ("Let's Get Lost"). As for those reviewers who complain about the decline in his chops, I say grow up--it happens, and to every last one of us. I see that Amazon lists, much more highly that I would--in its top 50 jazz recordings, in fact--Billy Holiday's "Lady in Satin." Now there's a recording fit for ghouls--a session no one has any business listening to unless they've first heard the '30s and '40s Columbia recordings ("The Best of Billie Holiday"). Otherwise it's less clear if the self-declared latter-day Holiday fan is responding to Lady Day's unsurpassable artistry or merely engrossed by a kind of freak show (the reason I've never been impressed by Edith Piaf's "Je Ne Regrette" or Anita O'Day's "Indestructible"-- pointless posturings belied by events immediately subsequent to their release).

Unlike the "Lady in Satin" recording, this video avoids the grotesque. And it's more enjoyable to listen to than a couple of things Chet recorded in the '70s--on which the Rhodes, Arp strings, and overdriven bass immediately expose them as period pieces. The camera work and editing are tasteful, with carefully worked-out camera set-ups and entirely non-obtrusive cutting. The closest the present recording comes to the pedestrian and mundane--if not the musically aberrant--is when the other two advertised performers--Van Morrison and Costello--are on camera. Apparently they got lost on their way to some amateur show at the singalong pub down the street. (It doesn't help that their two featured numbers--"Send in the Clowns" and "I'm a Fool to Want You"--are respectively "owned" and composed by the Master Storyteller. If Frank wasn't there to sing them, better they be left to Chet--or simply left alone.

The film concludes with one more question put to a most sociable and obliging Chet (all of the questioning and answering are obviously on location, most likely from the same night as the filming): "Have you ever thought about writing your autobiography?" Chet's answer is immediate: "Yes, in fact I wrote half of it; then I just put my pen down and stopped. No one would believe it anyway."

In so many words, you'll get the strenght of Baker's destroyed once angel looks when, in the first ten seconds, the camera stands on an extreme close-up, silently, as if watching and capturing his soul in every wrinkle he displays on his face.
Then he plays, and, as the initial notes of Ellen and David start to fill the air on the Ronnie Scott's club, the lightness of the west coast jazz begins to take over the room, like a summer breaze on a calm beach, on a sunny slow-paced winter morning.

With the exception of the regretable Van Morrison version of Send In The Clowns, and the excruciating Just Friends an unrecognisable Baker struggles to sing, the Dvd is an ensemble of interesting and poignant moments, filled with a very friendly interview "played" by Costello, as he talks about several subjects regarding Chet's life, from his begin to his drug addiction.
I live in Brazil, and I just discovered I was ripped off, 'cause I paid almost US$ 30 for this thing that costed US$ 15. No problem; in other situation, I wouldn't be able to acquire the Dvd. And, as I watch, I don't regret for a single minute, nor buck.
I strongly reccomend it. But do it the right way: buy it on Amazon.

The performance here is both. Chet's playing and singing are beautiful, but as an earlier reviewer pointed out, this is Chet in his twilight. The gift of his music is counterbalanced by the obvious punishment his lifelong heroin addiction has inflicted on him. My favorite part is Elvis Costello's rendition of "The Very Thought of You", which is absolutely superb. Between songs he interviews Chet, whose answers are interesting, and very candid. And yes, the Van Morrison song kinda sucks. If you're a Chet fan though, this DVD is a must.