Customer Reviews

Let's Get Lost

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This album consists of the tracks Baker recorded especially for the Bruce Weber documentary `Let's get lost' - a retrospective of the life of the great horn player and vocalist. Baker's life was troubled - his drug addiction is legendary, and ultimately caused his death, directly or indirectly, as the individual chooses to view the events. His musical genius is indisputable - and these recordings are an incredible witness to that. The group accompanying Baker (featured here on trumpet & vocals) is a small one: Frank Strazzeri (piano), John Leftwich (bass), Ralph Penland (drums & percussion) and Nicola Stilo (guitar & flute). There are standards a-plenty here - songs that will be loved forever by the likes of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn, Cole Porter, Johnny Burke & Jimmy VanHuesen, Antonio Carlos Jobim - as well as a tune by none other than Elvis Costello, just to show that great ones are still being written.

Baker was always a fine vocalist - and no one else sounds quite like him. There are times when it sounds like he's hanging onto the notes by his fingernails - but there's never a moment (here, or in anything I've ever heard him sing) when he sounds detached from the song. Every one of his performances is filtered through his heart and soul - and that's a beautiful thing to experience. Without taking such extreme liberties that the melody is unrecognizable (as many who style themselves `jazz vocalists' seem to do), Baker lovingly caresses each tune and makes it his own. The sheer intimacy that Baker is able to express in the love songs makes the listener feel like he or she is eavesdropping on a conversation from the next table in a dimly lit, wee-hours jazz club - and it's a privilege to share such raw, honest feelings.

The players are perfect in their support here - Baker's voice is the center of every arrangement, but with an instrument as magnetic as the singer possesses, how could it be otherwise? His trumpet playing is as fine as ever, even at this late stage of the game. It's sometimes sad to listen - there's pain so clearly and eloquently expressed in every song - but there's an unnamable joy present as well, for what a gift it is that he shares with us!

Weber's documentary is hard to watch as well - Baker's life was a hard one, filled with pain and sorrow, for which he turned to heroin. It's heartbreaking to witness someone hurting so much - but his music is without question of the timeless variety, and something to be treasured.

If this is the only jazz album you ever buy, then buy this one! Although the soundtrack for Bruce Weber's hypnotic B&W noir portrait of Baker (mainly through the eyes and voices of his women), this album stands on its own as a masterpiece of disinterested beauty. From the oceanic womb-like rhythm of the opening Moon and Sand to Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye's "every change from major to minor", this album's heart-piercing trumpet playing is breath-taking. Even the slightly off-key singing is as valid and "right" as an old bluesman's plantation song. As the lady said in the orgasmic cafe scene in When Harry Met Sally, "whatever she's having I'll have the same"...whatever Chet's on, musically, will do me fine. Of all Mr B's albums, and I've many, this is the most satisfying and addictive, one you won't get out of your head for a long time. ***** stars!

Not all of Chet Bakers CD's are worth having but this one is. The beauty is in the fragility of his singing voice. Similar to Johnny Cash's later recordings you can hear the life that the voice has lived as it sings. His playing is also beautifully fragile and perfect all at the same time. I've probably over analysed everything here :) I just really liked this CD.

This one never gets old for me. Chet made a lot of lousy albums, presumably feeding his heroin habit, but this is a masterpiece. He seems to own the songs -- the emotion pours out of them like he wrote them all himself -- but they're never saccharine. The rest of the quartet, while superb, lets him take center stage where he belongs for one of the last recordings of his life. Don't miss it.

This is one of the 2 very best Chet Baker records (the other one is "Chet"). And it is the music from the best music documentary film I have ever seen: the wonderful film by Bruce Weber with the same title.

To be sure, this CD does not show C.B. in his prime. Just the opposite, the music reveals the aging and tired Chet. Sometimes, his singing almost sounds like a whisper, can barely finish the note. In spite of all this, the CD is a beauty. It shows Chet's love for his craft, his music - the only constant in his life. Listening to the CD will make you feel like he's in your living room, all smoky and in dim light, at 2 a.m. in the morning with just him and the time. If you want to forget about everything that's going in your life, listen to this CD and lament that he's no longer with us. Even with all the screwed up events, including his tragic end, in his life, the music still comes through in true Chet style. Get this CD and feel his music and his heart.

Bought this on vinyl in 1989. I was gigging and living in Norway at the time. Had just read a review of the movie, which got me interested in hearing Chet sing. I had heard him play trumpet for 15 years on records, thought he was great, but never knew that he was a singer also. When I listened to this album, it was like hearing Mozart for the first time, only it was Jazz music! The sheer beauty, originality, interpretations, & romance of these tracks still knocks me out. The musicians playing with Chet here are amazing, as is Chet. Each song is a beautiful poem, sung and played/improvised with profound depth, sensativity, and mature skill.

Saw the film LETS GET LOST. Fell hard for the music. Could not believe a group of artists could take SILENCE this far. And not once lose me as a listener, not for an instant, not for a shred of an instant. It has seemed to me as I listen again and again to this c.d. that the music on it represents a supreme kind of creative courage and inspiration. Until I heard this music I don't think I've ever heard anyone, but Shirley Horn, take a song so slowly. I wouldn't have imagined what a next step into the brink of extending silence might sound or feel like - and now, thankfully I do. Chet Baker and the musicians backing him, and at the very center of them is pianist Frank Strazzeri's masterful playing, reveal a romanticism that blisters with depth, subtlety, and economy. Mr.Strazzeri deserves credit for choosing and arranging the songs on this soundtrack. They are stunning and perfect choices, as conduits, vessels, for the light that is the magic that is the music that is CHET BAKER.

Chet Baker has seldom sounded as otherworldly than he does here. This vocal collection of classic ballads is a valentine to the west coast scene, of which Mr. Baker was such a major figure. He died accidentally in 1988, at the age of 59, the year these standards were recorded. With just a small-combo setting -- bass, piano, drums, trumpet and vocal -- each tune is a finely-wrought cameo, sounding definitive in every way.

Though by all accounts his personal life was in turmoil, these songs reflect Mr. Baker's continuing strengths as a performer in the studio. Yes, his voice (never very strong) sounds wispy at times, but his timing is as evocative as ever, and the trumpet remains his real voice in any case. The sense of longing he brings to "Imagination" is nearly heartbreaking, and in "Blame It on My Youth" his delicate trumpet solo punctuates the wistful lyric. His uncanny phrasing even turns the surprising choice of Costello's countryish ballad "Almost Blue" into a languid reverie. At every turn Mr. Baker demonstrates what might have been ahead in a career that had already spanned 30 years.

Another reviewer has mentioned the fine ensemble playing on these sessions. It's a real tribute to say that this final album is as warm and exciting to hear as any of Mr. Baker's best, and new fans -- as well as longtime listeners -- will find it worth hearing time and again. The 1988 Bruce Weber documentary, for which these performances were recorded, is scheduled to be released on DVD in 2007, but this collection (now out of print) stands on its own and needs to be re-released. It's worth tracking down.

Another great cool jazz collection from Chet Baker, I put this right up there with "Chet Baker Sings". Very nice for candlelight dinners with that special person, or just to listen by your lonesome after a long work-week with a tall glass of wine for the perfect de-stressor CD. Favorite track: "Almost Blue".