I am a lifelong Chet Baker fan and I in fact knew him in the 50s. In the 1956-59 time frame I was taking trumpet lessons from the great lead trumpet man Carlton MacBeth in California and Chet took a few lessons from Carlton to get help with his problem of missing a front tooth. Carlton told me "He has an ear like an elephant!" A essential part of Carlton's teaching was the playing of Pedal Tones to form the correct embrochure and to freshen the lips. In 1957 I heard Chet play at the Los Angeles Jazz club called "Peacock Lane" and between songs he turned his back on the crowd and blew a few Pedal Tones. At the Peacock Lane he played "Bernie's Tune" for me. Later in San Diego, in the 1980s, I saw him playing with Stan Getz at a supper club looking out on the bay. The physical change in him was shocking. In the 50s he had been really handsome with everything about him together - well dressed and all. In the 80's his hair was bedraggled and deep furrows in his face and he was wearing Levi's. But he was playing great and it was really nice to talk to him again!

I would like people to know something about Chet. For one thing, he was really fast and intent. He looked right at you and into your eyes. He read your face very quickly and I have often thought that he would have made a great gun fighter. In his music, Chet relied on his ear and I'm pretty sure that he didn't even know how to read music. In this record you hear these qualities. Everytime Chet played a song, it was different, really different. Listen to My Funny Valentine on this record. Chet saved the best for last. This time My Funny Valentine is full of fire and Chet's solo seems to come from nowhere. Who would have ever thought that such a fantastic solo could have ever been conceived and executed by anyone. There is so much on this Album! I listen to it in my car with my windows down. I even want to be seen listening to it and I want others, probably for the only time in their life, to hear really great Jazz. The whole band cooks.

Chet was selected by Charlie Parker to be his trumpet player and I think there was probably no better judge of a Jazz player than Charlie Parker. To play with Bird you had to be great and to top it off, Chet played with everyone else as well. I have been listening to music and Jazz in particular all my life. I'm 66 now and I have heard it all. It is my opinion that Chet is our greatest Jazz trumpet player. He was not our greatest trumpet player. He couldn't scream double and triple C's and hold down the lead chair like Carlton, Bud Brisbois, or Cat Anderson, but he could make every band cook when he took the solo and that was his gift. Buy this CD and hear the Master!

Chet Baker's last years were, sadly, littered with mediocre or negligent performances. He frequently sounded as if he was intoxicated and sang so off-key that it was like fingernails on a blackboard.

So this CD, one of his last, comes as a very pleasant surprise. Chet sounds straight, plays well, ballads and bebop, plays tight arrangements and actually sings on-key most of the time.

If you had written off Chet Baker's last decade this one will surprise you.

This CD set would have attracted a lot more attention if each CD had been released separately, the high price of this late set made me wary. But not to worry, both are well worth the listen.

by MY rating system this CD gets 3 1/2 stars for a performance better than most of Chet's work. END

This is a truely great jazz album. Chet made quite a few albums which suffer from bad sound or bad playing (either by him due to drugs or inferior sidemen). Here everything falls into place. The sound is great, Chet is supported by a very sensitive, inventive trio and is in top form himself. There is a companion album to this and if you like Chet Baker at all both are an absolute MUST for you.
Chet himself thought that his playing got better with the years - unlike those critics who would have us believe that everything he did after Mulligan was not worth listening to. I agree with Chet and this album (recorded, I think, in the year of his death) bears witness to the fact that this was one of the great trumpet players of all time.