Chet Baker: Sings: It Could Happen To You [CRAFT]

Why you'll love it

This Craft reissue brings back the Riverside original in a stereo tip-on jacket. AllMusic gave it four stars and called it an essential title in Baker's 30-plus year canon, singling out how much his singing had grown.

This edition

• Tip-on jacket
• Stereo mix

About the album

Chet Baker made his name with a trumpet, then spent a good part of the 1950s convincing people he could sing. By 1958, on Riverside, he'd stopped asking. It Could Happen to You is the record where he sets the horn aside altogether and scats where the trumpet solos would usually go, with that soft, close-mic voice doing all the work.

The song choices are a treat: "Do It the Hard Way," "I'm Old Fashioned," "The More I See You," "Everything Happens to Me" and a quick, bright "Old Devil Moon." Kenny Drew is on piano throughout, George Morrow and Sam Jones split bass duties, and Philly Joe Jones keeps the drums light and swinging, with Dannie Richmond sitting in on a few cuts.

It follows the Chet Baker Sings records of the Pacific Jazz years, and it's the one where the singing sounds most at ease. Leaving the trumpet in its case for a whole album takes nerve; we'd call it a bold career move, though he'd probably have called it Tuesday.

Also at Kops: more Chet Baker on vinyl · browse Vocal Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Riverside / Craft Recordings (cat# CR00357), a reissue of the 1958 album.