I studied this album cover as if it's a coded message from another world. For some reason, and you can't see it here due to the sticker, but Baker is wearing light boat tennis shoes, with the heaviest sweater possible. Which brings to mind it is probably not winter, but spring or summer time when this photograph was taken for "It Could Happen To You." An album, if you listen to it carefully enough, it will cause the sound of zippers opening and slips/underwear dropping to the floor.
Chet Baker is the Johnny Thunders of Jazz. A hopeless drug addict with the looks of a more dangerous James Dean. His young beauty matching his soft whispering vocals must have been a hard combination to avoid with respect to a sexual adventure of some sort. The other amazing thing is his music sounds exactly the way he looks. His lyrical trumpet playing is soulful, and when he opens his voice, it is like the sound of a thousand pillows being puffed up.
This is the only album I have of Chet's singing. There are others, but I can't make a comparison, but the focus on this album is, of course, songs from the great American songbook. Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwin brothers, and Kern/Mercer all have a presence on this album. It's Baker's voice that conveys the desires and the angst of being in love, or in the pursuit of earthly romance.
Backed by an excellent band with Kenny Drew on piano throughout the album, and also the magnificent drummer Philly Joe Jones and others make the musical landscape the perfect vehicle for Chet's seductive stance within the vinyl grooves. It is also interesting to hear or compare the trumpet playing by Baker, and then how he uses his voice. He based his vocals on the trumpet, perhaps in the same manner as Frank Sinatra being influenced by Tommy Dorsey's horn playing. So in a sense, Chet's vocals is an instrument as well, in this exquisite landscape of romance, music, and god knows what else.
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