It was easy to fall in and out of love with Chet Baker. The trumpeter and vocalist was indeed a devil
with an angel’s face. His doleful approach to music drew listeners into his darkness for a brief stay at
his melancholy hotel. Baker’s drug abuse eventually--it took a while--destroyed his talents. In
between his dark bouts, glimpses of his genius were captured on record. In the later years of
his life (he died in 1988 at age 59) his recordings were quite hit-and-miss. This 1982 session with
an all-star rhythm section finds everyone, including Baker, in good form.
Mister Impeccable, Kenny Barron, anchors the date with steady accompaniment. Seemingly
the perfect foil, the pianist’s touch is chock-full of background fills but also swinging
blues solos.
Baker’s playing is marked with his signature vulnerable, frail sound. Where others might find this
to be weakness, Baker leans on his assailabilty for expression. The poster child for the ineffable
society is
on his game here. Although not listed in the notes, Baker’s flugelhorn appears on the final track,
“Prayer For the New Born.” Like the doleful “Lament,” taken from “Sometimes I Feel Like A
Motherless Child,” “Prayer” touches on life’s tragedies in a way no current jazz trumpeter seems
capable of doing.
James Newton and Howard Johnson play the flute and tuba respectively, accenting and
supporting with great effect. On the vocal track “Four,” with its 1950s references to a ‘four-in-one
girl,’ Johnson lays a wall-to-wall carpet of silky sound while Charlie Haden keeps the pulse. They
lighten things up with a hipster's quick take on Gershwin’s “But Not For Me.”
While not an essential Baker recording, But Not For Me is a valuable resurrection from
the out-of-print graveyard.
~ Mark Corroto
