Silent Nights (Dinemec Jazz)
Chet Baker
Re-released in 2017
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lC6xE_iNCFD32HJbplxr064EmELiCk2pA
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7vo9X8ppoUrze5TS0Deas6?si=mz0CgUIrRbK4RegjOwvIPQ
About:
Cut in New Orleans just a couple years before his untimely death, Chet Baker’s collection of Christmas songs (with a few gospel songs added to the mix for variety) is another spare, evocative, meditative soundtrack—aside from Baker on trumpet, the songs feature only a saxophone and some drums.
Track Listing:
1. Silent Night, Pt. 1 (Franz Gruber / Joseph Mohr) 02:50
2. The First Noel (William Sandys) 02:06
3. We Three Kings (John Henry Hopkins, Jr.) 02:27
4. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (Felix Mendelssohn / Charles Wesley) 02:01
5. Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen (Traditional) 03:57
6. Amazing Grace (John Newton) 03:36
7. Come All Ye Faithful (John Francis Wade) 04:28
8. Joy to the World (Lowell Mason / Isaac Watts) 02:40
9. Amen (Traditional) 01:41
10. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (Edmund Sears / Richard Storrs Willis) 01:57
11. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Traditional) 03:24
12. Silent Night, Pt. 2 (Franz Gruber / Joseph Mohr) 04:03
Personnel:
Chet Baker: trumpet
Christopher Mason: alto saxophone
Mike Pellera: piano
Jim Singleton: bass
Johnny Vidacovitch: drums
Recorded January 7, 1986, at Ultrasonics Studios New Orleans, LA, by Scott Goudeau
Produced by Christopher Mason
Executive producer: Paul Sutin
Cover photo: Bob Cass
Design: Fabienne Lapuce
Review:
This
music, recorded in 1986 a few months before trumpeter Chet Baker’s death, has
been in and out of release since first hitting the streets. Its newest
incarnation is as a music download. It is worth a listen if, for no other
reason, than Baker possessed a tone perfectly sculpted for playing holiday
classics. His martini-dry trumpet voice with softened edges easily slip in and
out of these familiar melodies without losing any of the holiday cheer to
straight improvisation. This is where Baker’s relative lack of technique really
pays off for him.
Silent Nights: A Jazz Christmas Album was originally released under Baker’s and alto saxophonist
Christoper Mason’s names. By all research, Mason left precious few footprints
in the jazz world save for this recording. Mason possesses a bluesy,
full-throated, bar-walking tone that is more Louis Jordan than Johnny Hodges.
He provides an earthiness and organicity to this collection that contrasts well
with Baker’s cool-school approach. The opening “Silent Night” offers
a microcosm of this by adding pianist Mike Pellera’s sensitive gospel and blues
sensibility. Pellera’s informed blues playing gives this old German Carol an
American humidity with interesting results.
In addition to the standard carols one might expect there is a smattering of
spirituals. Their inclusion here pushes the envelope on what is and is not part
of the holiday music canon—which is a good thing, because it keeps the
sub-genre fresh. Particularly fine here is “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve
Seen.” Mason is at his reedy blusiest-booziest introducing the piece. Baker,
who does not have a blues bone in his body, provides the gentle foil to the
spiritual, giving the performance a slightly off-kilter character. The same
effects are wrought from “Amazing Grace” (given an up-tempo
treatment) and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
Chet Baker plays consistently like…Chet Baker. The trumpeter could always be
counted on to provide an acceptable, sometimes even inspiring, performance
regardless of the circumstances. This is one of the attributes that makes
Baker’s trumpet playing so listenable. Baker is a difficult artistic figure to come to terms with because he
only allows terms that are his own.
C. Michael Bailey (All About Jazz)
