Monday, November 17, 2008

Chet Baker - Stella By Starlight (1964)



Unfortunately, I can't find a large version of the cover art for this, but the above picture does quite nicely. Well, this album is delicious. I became a fan of Chet Baker through reading up on Vincent Gallo (who's music often takes second best, however inaccurately, to his film career). Whatever I was reading at the time compared Gallow's voice to one Chet Baker. & so it began. I soon realized that I already knew a lot of Baker's stuff, and yadda yadda blah blahh. So this album doesn't have any of Chet's "fucking awesome" voice, but what it lacks vocally it more then makes up with in brass. This is pure mellow freak out. Cool jazz, doing what it does baby. Easy breazy, lemon fresh, dig on them silky bones and smooth wail you jive mother!

"Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.

Specializing in relaxed, even melancholy music, Baker rose to prominence as a leading name in cool jazz in the 1950s. Baker's good looks and smoldering, intimate singing voice established him as a promising name in pop music as well. But his success was badly hampered by drug addiction, particularly in the 1960s, when he was imprisoned.

He mounted a successful comeback in the '70s, but died in 1988 after falling from a hotel window." - Wikipedia



TRACK LIST:

1. My Funny Valentine (Instrumental)

2. Stella By Starlight

3. Short Bridge

4. Serpent's Tooth

5. Theme For Freddy

6. When Will The Blues Leave

7. In Your Own Sweet Way


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