Chet Baker – Sings

Chet Baker took his first steps into the heart of the jazz scene in 1952, playing with the revolutionary bebop pioneer Charlie Parker, before joining another sax player, Gerry Mulligan. A gifted trumpeter and an emblematic figure of West Coast Jazz, he didn't record Chet Baker Sings, his first vocal album, until 1956. There, his voice seamlessly matched the sound of his trumpet, creating a world of melodic simplicity and relaxation. Chet Baker offers here the most memorable recorded versions ever of some of these standard songs, starting with the intoxicating My Funny Valentine, which would remain in his repertoire for the rest of his life. The magic of this album resides in what it suggests about the trumpeter's own paradoxes: his security and his shyness, his fire and his fragility, and the part of shadow and hidden tragedy behind his Hollywood-like beauty and his apparent effortless genius, all of which have made of him one of the most fascinating musicians in jazz history.