Chet Baker – Chet (150g LP)

Label: Original Jazz Classics – OJC-087
Pressed by Quality Record Pressings
Although always recognized as a trumpeter with unsurpassed lyrical qualities, Chet Baker had many ups and downs in his long career. The very late 1950s was not an up period: the West Coast label to which he was under contract readily allowed Riverside to borrow him as leader on four albums. Most of them were extremely uneven, but this one definitely worked. It had a strong basic concept (simply to turn Chet loose on some first-class standard-ballad compositions) and, quite importantly, one of those casually all-star lineups that the jazz scene of those days made possible: Bill Evans, Kenny Burrell, Herbie Mann, Pepper Adams, Paul Chambers, Connie Kay, and Philly Joe Jones.