Vinyl Story

Description

When Gerry Mulligan's quartet released its first recordings in 1952 with the young and unknown trumpeter Chet Baker, it was an immediate success, with critics and the public alike. So much so that Chet won the Down Beat critics' poll in the "new star" category. And when the trumpeter decided to go solo and revealed his vocal talents in a very personal version of "My Funny Valentine" a few months later, the "Chet Baker craze" exploded. Yet, this white musician with an "angel's face," adored by America but also envied by some of his peers, would from that moment on lead the tumultuous and notorious life of a drug-dependent artist, and nothing would be spared him: arrests, trials, prison, beatings, expulsions, unemployment, odd jobs, until Lady Luck smiled on him again in the early seventies. The album "Chet Baker Sings," released in 1956, a seminal album in jazz history, revealed not only Chet's exceptional voice but the eternal quality of his jazz. It was honored in 2001 with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, after Anthony Minghella used Chet Baker's rendition of "My Funny Valentine" in his film "The Talented Mr. Ripley." From the earliest period of his career, Chet revealed to the world the unalterable virtues of his playing and singing: simplicity and contained emotion.