Chet Baker - Sings & Plays, Chet Baker (2023)

An icon of West Coast cool jazz, Chet Baker rose to fame in '50s with his lyrical trumpet lines and spare, romantic singing. After being handpicked for a West Coast tour with Charlie Parker, he burst onto the scene as a member of Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet, whose recording of "My Funny Valentine" made him a star even beyond his cult jazz audience. Signed to Pacific Jazz, he released a series of popular albums beginning with 1954's Chet Baker Sings, which featured his definitive vocal take of "My Funny Valentine;" from then on his signature song. By the end of the decade, he had topped both the Downbeat and Metronome Magazine reader's polls, famously beating out two of the era's most renowned trumpeters Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. He was also named DownBeat top jazz vocalist in 1954. At the height of his success, drug addiction and numerous incarcerations dimmed his spotlight and found him living and working a peripatetic lifestyle in Europe for much of the '60s and '70s. He also suffered the loss of his teeth, which hampered his playing until he worked his way back to health and launched a comeback with 1974's She Was Too Good To Me. He was also the subject of fashion photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber's Oscar-nominated 1988 documentary Let's Get Lost, which helped renew interest in his work. Tragically, he died that same year after falling out of a second story window of his Amsterdam hotel. Baker recorded prolifically during the last few decades of his life, leading to a wave of posthumously released albums, including My Favorite Songs, Vol. 1-2: The Last Great Concert, which captured one of his final concerts in Germany with the NDR Big Band and Radio Orchestra Hannover. In 2001, in recognition of the album's lasting influence, Chet Baker Sings was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Ethan Hawke portrayed Baker in the 2015 film Born to Be Blue, and yet more archival recordings surfaced with 2023's Blue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in Holland.