Track Listing

1. Autumn Leaves
2. She Was Too Good to Me
3. Funk in Deep Freeze
4. Tangerine
5. With a Song in My Heart
6. What'll I Do?
7. It's You or No One
8. My Future Just Passed [#]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20371 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

One Of Chet Baker's Finest Recordings!
I believe this is one of Chet's finest recordings.All tunes are beautiful.Don Sebesky's arrangements are beautiful. The band consists of all first rate players such as Ron Carter, Bob James, Steve Gadd, Jack DeJohnette,Hubert Laws, Paul Desmond and other fine players as well as a String section.Chet sings on "She Was Too Good to Me", "With A Song In My Heart","What'll I Do" and "My Future Just Passed".His voice, in my opinion is good here.I have to mention that on "She Was Too Good To Me", there is a quote from "The Man In My Little Girl's Life" , a very nice touch to such a gorgeous tune.Chet is at his very best here.Bob James, Paul Desmond and Hubert Laws(Funk In Deep Freeze) are at top form here.This is another of my all time favorites and I cannot recommend it too highly.(VLS)

The Essence of Lyrical, Chet's All Around Very Best!!
Chet Baker entered my life before I was a teenager, when someone in my family brought the classic "Chet Baker and Strings" into our home -- presumably by accident -- and left it sitting around for a few weeks. Since no one at home listened to LPs (except my Dad's Opera sets), any albums (from Gilbert and Sullivan to Tchaikovsky to Sigmind Romberg) not played within a short time after their arrival in the home simply moved upstairs became mine. Hence, Chet Baker was my first introduction to Jazz. Diluted by the string arrangements, to be sure, but Jazz it was (including, e.g., the late great Zoot Sims)!

That was the 1950s. I returned to jazz and to Chet Baker after many years, during which Chet's life (and especially his teeth) had gone to [his addiction], and he had regained his chops with amazing effort. Now, again, he was beginning to rise in the public eye -- though nothing like the interest triggered by his death some years later (walking out of a 2nd story wondow "by accident"). One of the prominent comeback albums when I checked back in was the gorgeous, "She Was Too Good to Me."

Like my much earlier introduction, this album is lush with strings, and rich, crystal clear production. (Many of the also-lyrical 1950s albums are musically superb, but lacking clear production.) Here, though, I was introduced to my first Chet Baker vocals, later learning that this was among his most tuneful, on-key vocal sessions.

Chet Baker is the most lyrical of all jazz trumpeters -- even including the extraordinary Joe Wilder and Joe Newman. Chet's tone is always thick and buttery, rather than sharp and brassy. (Thinking only of his trumpet's tone, the buttery texture of Chuck Mangione's horn comes to mind, although Chet dwarf's Mangione in every respect.) His improvisations are always gracefully inventive, never edgy or harsh. The songs he plays are quite recognizeable, but the listener is always taught something new about the song's full possibilities. These qualities are shown nowhere as clearly as on this great album. Several of these songs have received too little cover during the decades of jazz -- notably the title cut and the infectious, "With A Song in My Heart" (Mom's favorite!). And unlike the vast majority of Chet's vocals, especially his later vocals after the ..problems had seemingly taken over -- his voice here is consistently as true as his honey sweet horn -- on key, gentle, seductively challenging, musically precise.

When speaking to someone interested in first "getting into" jazz, but put off by it's initial incoherence, this is always my recommendation. Accessible but smart; smooth but challenging; and always seductively appealing. This is music which is quick to please, yet never stale.

Bop and subtelty combined.
With his brilliant rhythm section, especially Jack DeJohnette's powerful drive, Chet Baker delivers a combination of honey-smooth vocal ballads with lyrical trumpet lines, and swingin bop tunes that capture the brilliance of Baker's improvisation.