Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Person / 1929 - 1988 / United States

American jazz trumpeter and vocalist

jazz

Biography

Chesney Henry Baker Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool".

Source: Wikipedia -- text available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Image via Wikipedia -- Chet Baker.

Elsewhere

Analysed songs (10)

Almost Blue

Chet Baker

A torch song built entirely on approximation, where the singer tries to substitute one person for a lost love and finds every…

substitution and self-deception grief disguised as romance emotional numbness

Autumn Leaves

Chet Baker

This is an instrumental reading of a standard, so the analysis works from title, genre convention, and Chet Baker's established…

seasonal change loss and impermanence romantic nostalgia

I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)

Chet Baker

A standard from 1939 (words and music by Jane Brown Thompson, published as a discovery by Hoagy Carmichael) becomes, in Baker's…

denial as self-protection involuntary memory seasonal association with loss

Isn't It Romantic?

Chet Baker

Chet Baker's reading of this Rodgers and Hart standard turns a bright, playful showtune into something hushed and interior.…

anticipation of love imagination versus reality romantic idealism

Over the Rainbow

Chet Baker

This is an instrumental reading of the Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg standard, recorded by Chet Baker on his 1962 comeback album Chet…

longing exile and return faded innocence

She Was Too Good to Me

Chet Baker

A short, spare torch song sung from the vantage of someone who has driven away a devoted partner and now sits in the wreckage of…

regret and self-recrimination undeserved devotion loss of comfort and stability

Someone To Watch Over Me

Chet Baker

This is the Gershwin standard delivered as a late-career Chet Baker vocal, where the wistful search for a protector reads less…

longing for protection loneliness romantic idealization

Tangerine

Chet Baker

This is an instrumental reading of the pop standard "Tangerine" as performed by Chet Baker, likely on trumpet (possibly with a…

longing romantic nostalgia exoticism/escapism

What'll I Do

Chet Baker

This is Chet Baker's reading of Irving Berlin's 1924 standard, a spare lament built almost entirely around a single repeated…

separation and longing romantic insecurity jealousy

With a Song In My Heart

Chet Baker

A slender, devotional love lyric built around a single conceit: that romantic feeling and musical feeling are the same…

romantic devotion music as spiritual metaphor transcendence through love