Chet Baker: Chet Baker Sings Tone Poet Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This Tone Poet edition, supervised by Joe Harley, comes from the original mono masters on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket. The album holds Baker's signature "My Funny Valentine" and went into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.

This edition

Blue Note Tone Poet Series
Mastered from the original analog tapes
Mono
180g vinyl
Gatefold jacket

About the album

Chet Baker's mother loved his singing voice and spent years asking him to use it more. Until this album he was almost purely a trumpeter, the West Coast cool-jazz star with the movie-idol face, but after trying a couple of vocals in October 1953 he asked producer Dick Bock for a whole album of singing. Bock was sceptical. Baker kept at it, take after take, in a Hollywood studio.

Pianist Russ Freeman picked several of the songs and plays on every session, with Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon and Bob Neel on the 1954 dates and a later 1956 session adding six more tunes for the expanded LP. The voice is soft and close, the trumpet slips in between verses, and "I Fall in Love Too Easily," "Time After Time" and "The Thrill Is Gone" sound like they were sung to one person across a small table. William Claxton's photos set the look.

Baker returned to these songs for the rest of his career, and "My Funny Valentine" was a fixture of his concerts. He got there in the end on the strength of one persistent mother, which is a reminder that mothers are usually right and rarely let you forget it.

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

Tracklist

Side A
1. That Old Feeling
2. It's Always You
3. Like Someone In Love
4. My Ideal
5. I've Never Been In Love Before
6. My Buddy

Side B
1. But Not For Me
2. Time After Time
3. I Get Along Without You Very Well
4. My Funny Valentine
5. There Will Never Be Another You
6. The Thrill Is Gone
7. I Fall In Love Too Easily
8. Look For The Silver Lining