Sammy Nestico And The SWR Big Band - "A Cool Breeze"

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

SWR Big Band - Südwestrundfunk

Seventeen musicians-one sound. And a very convincing sound, at that. The SWR Big Band has so far been nominated four times for a Grammy - the most important music award in the world. Also it received in 2015 a Jazz Award in Cold ffom German music industry. Enjoyed a great honor in 2011, when it was the first German band ever suggested for the "Premio da Musica Brasileira", Brazil's most important music award. In the face of so much fame, it seems almost modest to say that the SWR Big Band is one of the best big bands in the world.

Jazz, fusion or world music, the repertoire is large. As is the list of guests: Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, Ivan Lins, Curtis Stigers, Roy Hargrove, Roberta Gambarini, Patti Austin, Sammy Nestico, Paula Morelenbaum, Joo Kraus, Toshiko Akiyoshi. Bob Florence, Rob McConnell, Slide Hampton, Maria Schneider, Frank Foster, Bill Holman, Bob Mintzer and Ralf Schmid. Or how about a shade more pop? No problem - for instance, with Paul Carrack, Max Mutzke, Mousse T., Andrew Roachford, Incognito or Götz Alsmann.

Like the big bands in the USA, the SWR Big Band has its own sound, bequeathed to it by its founder and conductor, Prof. Erwin lehn. The starting gun was first heard on April 1, 1951. Back then, the SWR Big Band was still known as a dance orchestra, the Südfunk Tanzorchester, Lehn saw to it that the band was increasingly referred to as the "Daimler of big bands". For it has shared the stage with many stars: Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Astrud Gilberto, Chet Baker, Caterina Valente or even Arturo Sandoval, Ever since the early nineties, the SWR Big Band has been appearing with various bandleaders, depending on the project and style of music.

• www.swrbigband.de

Sammy Nestico is a composer-arranger whose accomplishments and credits have earned him legendary status in the music business.

Today’s word that best describes him is “iconic.”

He has done it all: a host of big band arrangements including those for the Count Basie Band, The Airmen of Note and Germany’s SWR Orchestra, movie and television scores, and a variety of commercials.

Along the way, he has won a bunch of Grammy Awards and, judging by the smile that appears to never leave his face, he has had a great deal of fun doing what he loves to do.

He’s a perfect example of the adage: “Do what you love and the rest will follow.”

On June 9, 2017, SWR Music released A Cool Breeze: Sammy Nestico and the SWR Big Band [SWR 19039] which documents more of the ongoing love affair between this brilliant, Stuttgart-based big band and one of the most accomplished composer-arrangers in the history of big band Jazz.

Everything about this recording is simply splendid from the SWR’s technical execution of the arrangements, to the joyful and magical way Sammy’s charts play out on the listener’s ear to the audio quality which imbues the music with a rich texture and a warm sound. Listening to the music on this recording makes you realize why Big Band Jazz is a category apart and that when it’s done right, no other aspect of Jazz matches its majestic sonority.

The great drummer Louie Bellson once said that sitting behind a drum kit when a big band was in full flight was what it must feel like to “soar like an eagle.” Indeed, Louie loved this analogy so much that he wrote a tune with that title for his big band.

Sammy must have dug it, too, because his arrangements make the SWR big band “fly!”

Sammy offered these comments about his working relationship with the orchestra in the accompanying insert notes booklet:

Notes by Sammy Nestico

“When listening to the SWR Big Band CD, you always expect a high degree of musicianship Even though the orchestra produces variations to comply with changing trends, there is always a "feel" that is distinctive and basically a part of the SWR Big Band. It has always been one of the great experiences of my life to know and perform with these musicians.

Let's talk about the music.

Finding appropriate instrumental colors for Cell Talk was a problem and had to be approached from a different musical viewpoint. I settled on instrumental couplings rather than using a complete sax or brass section. It proved more appropriate due to the variety of cell phone conversations. Listen closely and you may even hear some senseless chatting going on.

Benny Golson has always been one of my favorite writers. Because we chose to take the tune Along Came Betty out of Benny's original jazz format, the band gave it a new personality.

Along with this tune, I've always had have a special feeling for my composition of A Cool Breeze. It was originally written for a young student band, but the melody was pleasing enough to take it on a more adventurous journey. Along with a hot rhythm section, the solos on Along Came Betty and A Cool Breeze are among the best on the recording.

Frankie and Johnny has been taken apart and reassembled with all the vigor that 18 musicians can muster Adding to this happy mood, the brass section is especially aggressive, urged on by Karl Farrent.

When adding Moonlight On The Ganges to the roster of old favorites, the usual instrumentation was embellished with an oboe, sitar, mallets and a gong for more authenticity.

Likewise, The Jazz Music Box highlights a compressed brass section to give the "music box" a little charm ... but alas, like all music boxes, it inevitably winds down. Enjoy!”

In the following insert notes, Ralf Dombrowski provides more background information about the long-standing working relationship between Sammy and the SWR Big Band - Südwestrundfunk and how this recording came about.

“The SWR Big Band bears a responsibility. On the one hand, it started out in the comparably comfortable situation of being securely financed by the fees that make the German broadcasting system possible. This means that the orchestra is not forced to rely on a safe repertoire when it comes to planning and designing its programs, The SWR Big Band can experiment, can invite people and set priorities that may appear surprising at first glance. In fact, the ensemble and its creative minds have managed to be nominated for a Grammy four times in years past and to develop, under bandleaders such as Erwin Lehn or Kurt Edelhagen, a profile independent of the beginnings and the early merits, which

stands for deep roots in the swing and bop tradition as well as for being open to ideas of contemporary sounds and a thrilling portion of fun in playing music. Recently, guests like guitarist Larry Carlton and composer and singer Ivan Lins have been able to take part in this mixture, as well as the entertainer Curtis Stigers or master guitarist Pat Metheny.

A Cool Breeze

Or the composer and arranger Sammy Nestico, as well. The paths of this friendly, white-haired gentleman from Pittsburgh, who has been one of the constants in the world of American music since the 1950s, have crossed with informal regularity those of the SWR Big Band which, with recordings such as "No Time Like The Present" (2004), "Basie-Cally Sammy" (2005), "Fun Time And More" (2008) and "Fun Time And More - Live" (2010), made a key contribution to sharpening the international perception of Nestico's late creative phases. He brought along plenty of experience, for his musical career enabled him to work with many defining and inspiring jazz personalities over the years. And it soon became apparent that he, like fellow arranger Neal Hefti, has an extraordinary sense of the impact of what is simple, clear, and accessible. As a youth, he taught himself to play trombone, worked as a studio musician after getting his degree from Duquesne University, and at a time when big bands were dying out,

cultivated his fascination for large ensembles by working in Washington primarily for the US Marines and Air Force orchestras.

Film music then attracted him in the Sixties. Nestico moved to Los Angeles, composing for films and television series and taking care of the didactic and pedagogical reworking of many classics and works of his own. Hundreds of charts came into being and were passed around at American schools and universities, such as the music for the Time-Life Big Band, which was involved in meaningfully transforming the ensemble jazz that had become traditional. In addition, Nestico's cousin Sal found him a job with one of the titans of the business: around 1968 he began arranging for the Count Basie Band, a collaboration that continued into the mid-eighties. Since this time at the latest, he has been considered one of the most important arrangers of trenchant modern jazz and was engaged by Ray Anthony, Frank Sinatra, Frank Stallone and even Phil Collins to give the large orchestra its proper, succinct form.

The Sammy Nestico Project

At any rate, he has found his style, and it sends the pros into raptures. "On the one hand, you notice after four or five bars that it is Sammy Nestico," says Marc Godfroid, trombonist with the 5WR Big Band who, among other things, attended to communication with the master on the other side of the world while the Sammy Nestico Project was being recorded. "On the other, he is still constantly developing.”  The music he wrote specially for this CD, for instance, is quite different from what you could hear from him five years ago." The enthusiasm for the repertoire on which the recordings of January 2016 are based, ran through the whole troupe of musicians. The casual precision with which the possibilities of orchestral configuration are boiled down to their essence is particularly extraordinary. Nestico's pieces are concentrates of lightness. You think you understand them at first glance, and yet under their accessible surface they conceal a mature complexity whose precision in the control of emotions and moods, in the coloring of the sounds, and in the intensification of the song dramaturgy brings out the magic of the overall impression.

"Beautiful things never disturb" is a motto that Nestico had already adopted while working with Count Basie. It also enables him to leave prevailing fashions behind. The music he wrote for the SWR Big Band sounds funky, has elements of fusion in its ingredients, but by the same token swing, a pinch of soul and the emotionalism of orchestral expression. It can scale back to a reduced combo momentum only to lead logically to the other extreme of opulent sound a little later. It is the intensification of compositional skill, which goes beyond what can be directly apprehended from the score, a creative mastery that baritone saxophonist Pierre Paquette sums up by saying, "Sammy is the boss!" However, this is only possible because a basis for mutual understanding was created during more than ten years of collaboration between the composer and the orchestra, a collaboration built not only on notes, but also on intuition.

Thus it also became possible to achieve the recordings of the Sammy Nestico Project with emphatic finesse even though the "boss" was sitting tight thousands of kilometers away in San Diego. In contrast to earlier collaborations, where Nestico himself stood on the podium of the SWR Big Band, he had decided not to undertake the hassle of intercontinental travel just before his 92nd birthday. Even so, Skype enabled him to take part in the recordings, at least as a digital onlooker. Again and again, pieces just recorded were sent to his computer, eliciting tears of joy from the elderly gentlemen, who would say, "I am only hearing that through the small speaker on the laptop, but it sounds great. We have already made four records, but this one here is the best, without a doubt!" The musicians who were standing around the screen in the SWR studio smiled and nodded. They lived up to their responsibility and experienced a little bit of happiness, as well.”

The American wing of Naxos International is handling the distribution and Michael Bloom’s team is in charge of media relations: musicpro@earthlink.net

Rosario Giuliani - Sassofonista Straordinario [alto saxophonist extraordinaire]

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“The musicianship of Rosario Giuliani is exhilarating.  His total package of performance, composition and improvisation is not so much a breath of fresh air as it is a gale force wind blowing across a landscape littered with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane disciples.  He has a confident, masculine tone that is at once assertive and tender, betraying bit of Julian Adderley and Eric Dolphy.”

- C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz, Review of Mr. Dodo, Dreyfus Jazz CD [FDM 36636-2]

“The overwhelming immediacy, passion and extraordinary swing in enriched by the surprising maturity with which Rosario handles the most difficult and compelling repertoire.”

- Paolo Piangiarelli, owner-operator, Philology records

“The discovery of Rosario Giuliani by a large audience is a blessing. At 34, this sax player is one of Italy's hidden treasures and his reputation keeps growing there. Swift, lyrical and inspired, endowed with an alto and soprano sound of blazing intensity, that owes as much to Cannonball Adderley or Jackie McLean as it does to Puccini, Giuliani presently shows a bold maturity. As both a sideman and a leader, he has, until now, mostly graced the stages and studios of his native peninsula, astonishing both European and American musicians who crossed his path. For six years now, the Rosario Giuliani quartet has been the laboratory for a personal, genuine, and invigorating vision of the Parker and Coltrane legacy - a crucible of creative and generous musicianship. Following a couple of recordings on small labels, this is his first album on the international scene. With it, the Rome-based reedman is likely to set the record straight, ruffle some feathers in the process, and provide many listeners with the whiff of fresh air they've been waiting for. At last!”

- Thierry Quenum, Rosario Giuliani Quartet: LUGGAGE [Dreyfus Jazz FDM 36618-2]

“I met Rosario Giuliani some years ago (he happened to be part of an orchestra in one of my recording sessions); after hearing him playing I nicknamed him "thousand-notes boy". I realised I had met a young sax virtuoso, perfectly mastering a refined and unexceptionable technique: an authentic improvisator. 

And you know, improvisation is the real essence of jazz. Capable of such personal interpretations (he seems to "live" each theme note by note, interval after interval) whose rigour and coherence I'm pleased to define almost classical, in this CD Rosario succeeds in giving the impression of a live stage, thus shortening distances between players and listeners and, therefore, heating the cold atmosphere usually pervading recording rooms. He has got sufficient charisma to become the catalyst agent of the group, gathering four extraordinary players: Pietro Lussu on piano and keyboards, Fabrizio Bosso on trumpet, Joseph Lepore on double-bass, and Lorenzo Tucci on drums.

Everything is plunged in a magic perception of time, non technical, where notes fly around the executed themes while different signals and sensations follow one another as if they were waving. Giuliani performs such long solos neither schematic nor repetitive. He has got a boundless fantasy and expresses himself playing notes which amplify the basic chords. His music is direct, harsh, delicate, introspective; his phrasing produces somewhere "note storms" His style is an exhausting outline of Parker's, Coltrane's and sometimes Ornette Coleman's musical experiences, filtered by his personal "search for freedom". The result is an harmonically rich music, absolutely charming with its evolved melodies and swing.”

- Gianni Ferrio, Tension [Schema Records SCCD 309]

Italy is the home of clothes that people around the world love to wear; cars they love to drive and an appetizing cuisine that is universally popular.

It is also the home of a number of first rate Jazz alto saxophonists

dating back to the late Massimo Urbani [1957-1993], after whom Italy’s most prestigious Jazz award is named, including Gianluigi Trovesi, Paolo Recchia, Francisco Cafiso, Stefano Di Battista and Rosario Giuliani.

Indeed, if you like your alto playing searing, sensual and sonorous, welcome to the world of Rosario Giuliani. His is an alto tone that is big, biting and burning – all at the same time; it is a sound that totally envelopes the listener.

In addition to Adderley and Dolphy [and perhaps even some ‘early years’ Art Pepper], Giuliani also incorporates a style that is reminiscent of Chris Potter before he moved on to “the big horn,” especially the Potter of Presenting Chris Potter on Criss Cross [CD 1067].

Other alto saxophone contemporaries such as Jesse Davis, Kenny Garrett, Jon Gordon, Vincent Herring, and Jim Snidero, and are also reflected in Giuliani’s style, and yet, despite these acknowledgements, he is very much his own man.

Whether it’s running the changes on finger-poppin’ bop tunes, improvising on modal scales and odd time signatures or finding his way movingly and expressively through ballads, Giuliani enveloping sound is a force and a presence. He has a technical command of the instrument that lets him go wherever he wants to on the horn including employing the dash difficult Paul Desmond device of improvising duets with himself.

Giuliani’s recordings will also provide an opportunity to hear some wonderful rhythm section players frequenting today’s Italian Jazz scene such as pianists Dado Moroni, Pietro Lussu, and Franco D’Andrea; bassists Gianluca Renzi, Jospeh Lepore, Pietro Ciancaglini, Dario Deidda, and Rimi Vignolo; drummers, Lorenzo Tucci, Benjamin Henocq [Swiss/Italian], Massimo Manzi and Marcello Di Leonardo. All of these guys are virtuoso players who can really bring it.

Rosario’s music is a reflection of a young player finding his way through the modern Jazz tradition with straight-ahead, bop-oriented tunes such as Wes Montgomery’s Road Song, re-workings of Ornette Coleman’s The Blessing and Invisible and, as is to be expected from today’s young, reed players, Coltranesque extended adventures such as the original Suite et Poursuite, I, II, III.

Interestingly his tribute to Coltrane album is done as a Duets for Trane in which he an pianist Franco D’Andrea perform on nine Coltrane originals such as Equinox, Central Park West and Like Sonny. There is very little “sheets of sound” to be found anywhere on this recording, but rather, an introspective and original examination of Coltrane’s music by someone whose playing would have made him smile.

Rosario has a lovely way with ballads as can be heard in his sensitive and thoughtful interpretations of Tadd Dameron’s On a Misty Night, Bob Haggart’s What’s New and Michele Petrucciani’s lovely Home.  

Many other slow tunes are given a prominent place on his recordings.  He even put out an early recording devoted entirely to standards such as Skylark, What is This Thing Called Love and Invitation that are interspersed with an original, four-part blues odyssey entitled Blues Connotation. It is his way of showing his conservancy with these musical forms and to pay homage to these strains within the Jazz tradition.

Giuliani is in demand by movie composers such as Morricone, Umilani, and Ortolani and has a CD out entitled Tension that features his interpretation of Jazz themes from Italian movies.

Many of his CD’s are still available via online and retail sellers and collectively represent staggering body of high quality playing. Rosario Giuliani is a player of distinction who makes Jazz, in all its modern manifestations, an exciting adventure.

I recommend him to you without reservation as someone who will reward you many times over should you chose to include him and his associates in your musical vocabulary.

Dave Stryker - "Strykin' Ahead"

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

On his Live at the Blue Note CD, Paquito D’Rivera, introduces the band members to the audience with a particular emphasis on the diverse regions in The Americas that they hail from and then going on to compare this diversity of the band to “The United Nations.”

When the audience snickers at the comparison, Paquito jumps up and shouts: “Yeah, but this band works” which then has the audience audibly ROFL.

It is a funny line, but every time I get a new CD by Dave Stryker, or a notification of a forthcoming club date by his band, or read a write-up about a concert appearance by Dave’s group I think of Paquito’s line - “Yeah, but this band works.”

And why not?

If you have chops like Dave’s; his musical sensibilities; his uncanny ability to put together interesting instrumentations; his skill at selecting just the right band mates to make Jazz with; wouldn’t you want to work all the time, too?

It becomes like anything you’re good at; you want to do it as often as possible but occasionally vary the context to keep it from getting stale.

The following insert notes by Ted Panken provides a context for the new recording as well as fine write-ups on the musicians and the music on the date.

It also underscores a lot of feelings that I share about Dave such as the statement that he is a “... an in-the-moment improviser with deep roots in the tradition who knows how to push the envelope without damaging the contents and “... his long-standing practice of presenting originals and reharmonized standards from the jazz and show music songbooks.”

“The notion of moving forward by triangulating a space between creative and pragmatic imperatives is a consistent thread throughout Dave Striker's four decades in the jazz business, not least on Strykin' Ahead, his 28th CD as a leader. Stryker augments his working trio of Jared Gold on organ and McClenty Hunter on drums with vibraphone player Steve Nelson, all on-board for a second go-round after their stellar contributions to last year's Eight-Track II.

Like the leader, Nelson is a preternaturally flexible and in-the-moment improviser with deep roots in the tradition who knows how to push the envelope without damaging the contents. Stryker internalized those imperatives on a 1984-1986 run win Brother Jack McDuff, and he received further invaluable training in the art of musical communication during a decade on the road with Stanley Turrentine, to whom he paid homage on the 2015 release Don't Mess With Mister T.

In contrast to his Eight Track II conception of putting his spin on pop hits of his formative years, Stryker returns to his long-standing practice of presenting originals and reharmonized standards from the jazz and show music songbooks. "Shadowboxing" is a burning 14-bar minor bhes; his well-considered chordal variations on Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" proceed to a simmering 5/4 figure. Next is "New You" (a stimulating Stryker contrafact of the oft-played "There Will Never Be Another You"). He personalizes Billy Strayhorn's "Passion Flower," set to Hunter's insinuating bossa nova-funk groove. The title track "Strykin’ Ahead" has a Cadillac-racing-down-the-freeway-feel; he imbues the lovely melody of "Who Can I Turn To" with the full measure of his plush, inviting tone.

That Stryker knows his Albert King is evident on the slow-drag "Blues Down Deep," which evokes wee-hours third sets in the inner city grills and lounges of Stryker's apprentice years. He knows his bebop, too. On Clifford Brown's "Joy Spring," the solo flights over Stryker's "modernized" progressions transpire over Hunter's drum-bass beats and crisp, medium-up four-on-the cymbal; on the chop-busting "Donna Lee," all members springboard off a churchy vamp and Hunter's funk-infused swing.

"I've always wanted to write vehicles that are fun and interesting to blow over," Stryker says. "Trying to come up with a beautiful melody that lasts is very fulfilling. Writing is a big part of my voice in this music." Stryker is too modest to say that his voice is also a big part of jazz, to which he's devoted a career marked by consistent application of the values that he espouses. But that's all right — I'll say it for him.

The following video features Dave, Steve, Jared and McClenty of Clifford Brown’s Joy Spring replete with some new harmonies for this old Jazz standard.

Jeroen de Valk's Biography of Chet Baker: Revised,Updated and Expanded

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"As a touring artist you are constantly surrounded by people who want something from you. People ask you for everything imaginable, offer you things . . . Chet couldn't shut himself off, he was open to everything that happened around him.

"Yesterday, somebody came backstage and started insulting me. He thought I played badly and said so in a very unpleasant way. I said: 'This is the dressing room, what are you doing back here?' and told him to get lost. If you take drugs, you can't do that. At certain moments you get an enormous kick, but later you're even more susceptible to exactly those things you've escaped from. You don't even have control over yourself. You're always in the victim's role.

"I'm often in Europe on tour. On the stage, I have success, I communicate with the public. But when I leave the stage, I'm a mere mortal again, trying to get along in the world. No one knows me, only the jazz insiders, and I don't speak the languages. Everywhere there are people who try and cheat this 'Ugly American.' And I fight it: 'Hey, you're charging me too much, No, that's not right!' I don't like to have to act that way, but I have the alternative of either doing it or being cheated.

"Chet let all this affect him and then would suddenly get in a horrible mood in a completely uncontrolled way. Once, we were supposed to rehearse in a music school where I taught. The principal, who sat behind a desk below, didn't know Chet and asked him what he was doing there. When Chet heard that he began to abuse the guy. And he wouldn't let up. I think I lost the job because of that incident. He looked like a tramp and was treated accordingly.

"Anytime someone wants to tell me a story about Chet Baker, I say, 'Stop, let it alone,' because I already know it's going to be a sad story. Chet got in trouble all the time."

-Lee Konitz, alto saxophonist

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has recently received its copy of the revised, updated and expanded edition of Jeoren de Valk’s biography Chet Baker: His Life and Music and is pleased to inform you that it is now available from Aspekt Press and at Amazon.

Originally copyrighted in 1989 by Van Gennep, the book has been translated into English and available in a softbound edition since 2000 from Berkeley Hills Books.

Chet Baker was a star at 23 years old, winning the polls of America’s leading magazines. But much of his later life was overshadowed by his drug use and problems with the law. Chet Baker: His Life and Music was Baker’s first solidly researched biography, published a year after Baker’s passing in 1988. It was available in five languages.

Here is a Press Release about the forthcoming revised, updated and expanded edition of Mr. de Valk’s biography of Chet.

“Now finally, here is Jeroen de Valk’s thoroughly revised, updated and expanded edition. De Valk spoke to Baker himself, his friends and colleagues, the police inspector who investigated his death and many others. He read virtually every relevant word that was ever published about Chet and listened to every recording; issued or unissued.

The result of all this is a book which clears up quite a few misunderstandings. For Chet was not the ‘washed-up’ musician as portrayed in the ‘documentary’ Let’s Get Lost. He recorded his best concert ever less than a year before he died. His death was not thát mysterious.   

According to De Valk, Chet was first of all an incredible improviser; someone who could invent endless streams of melody. “He delivered these melodies with a highly individual, mellow sound. He turned his heart inside out, almost to the point of embarrassing his listeners.’’  

The film rights of this book have been sold to Kingsborough Pictures. The movie ‘Prince of the Cool’ is in the making. Furthermore, the author worked as an advisor for ‘My Foolish Heart’, a Dutch ‘neo-noir music film’ which will be released in cinemas in 2018. Earlier, De Valk contributed to the legendary documentary ‘The Last Days’.

The press about De Valk’s earlier edition:

Jazz Times: ”A solidly researched biography… a believable portrait of Baker… a number of enlightening interviews…’’  

Library Journal: “De Valk’s sympathetic yet gritty rendering of Baker’s life blends well with his account of Baker’s recording career. Somehow, the author manages to avoid the lurid and sensationalistic aspects that those having only a passing familiarity with the musician usually recount.’’

Cadence: “A classic of modern jazz biography. De Valk’s writing is so straightforward as to be stark, yet this is just what makes it so rich. His description of the events leading to the fall that took Baker’s life, for instance, has a quick, breathless suspense to it.’’

Jazzwise: “… it’s going to be definitive.’’

Jeroen de Valk (1958) is a Dutch musician, journalist and jazz historian. He has been writing about jazz since the late 70s and also authored an acclaimed biography about tenor saxophonist Ben Webster.”

And here is an excerpt from the Preface of the original edition of the book that sets the tone for how Mr. de Valk approached writing about Chet:

“CHET BAKER is the subject of many misunderstandings. Read anything about Chet Baker— an article in a magazine or a newspaper, for example —and it is likely you will be told that Chet was a pitiful character who started using drugs when his popularity dwindled and his piano player Dick Twardzik died. That he faded into obscurity after spectacular early success and was rescued from oblivion by filmmaker Bruce Weber, who also inspired his last recording, the soundtrack for Let's Get Lost. That he was killed in Amsterdam, where the police handled the case carelessly.

The truth, alas, is less sensational. Chet had his problems, but he was hardly that badly off. He started using drugs when he was at the height of his popularity and Twardzik was still alive. In the last ten years of his life, he was very popular in Europe, where he recorded and performed extensively. His trumpet playing was usually much stronger than it is in Weber's film. The soundtrack was certainly not his last recording; he made over a dozen records afterward, both live and in the studio. One of them — Chet Baker in Tokyo — contains his best work ever. And, finally, Chet was not killed. After thorough examination, the police concluded that he died because he fell out of his hotel room, after having taken heroin and cocaine. This may sound anti-climatic for a jazz hero, but there is nothing I can do about that.

I found out this - and other things - while talking to friends, colleagues, and a police sergeant, spending quite some time in libraries, reviewing paper clippings from all over the world, and collecting as many recordings as I could.”

Having now had the opportunity to read the revised and expanded edition of Jeoren de Valk's Chet Baker: His Life and Music, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles formed the following impressions about the work.

[1] It is a painstakingly accurate book that goes to great lengths to separate fact from fiction in Chet's life and in so doing, dispels many of the romanticized myths associated with what has become a Baker hagiography;

[2] It is chronologically detailed such that it offers the reader a full overview of each of the major periods in Chet's career beginning with the famous piano-less quartet he formed with Gerry Mulligan, continuing on with the quartet he formed with pianist Russ Freeman, to his own groups on the West Coast and earlier tours of Europe, and then to the remaining 25 years of his career spent mainly in Europe with occasional sojourns to the states;

[3] The work is full of primary source interviews largely centered around the musicians, record executives, club owners, concert impresarios and Jazz fans who were close to Chet and many of these are cross-referenced to give the clearest possible picture of Chet and his music;

[4] The book is full of fair and honest assessments of the quality of the music on Chet's many recordings in an effort to help the listener focus of the better ones;

[5] De Valk maintains that "Chet was first of all an endless improviser; someone who could invent endless streams of melody. He delivered these melodies with a highly individual, mellow sound. He turned his heart inside out, almost to the point of embarrassing his listeners:" there are numerous musician interviews whose aim it is to attempt to explain why Chet's approach to improvisation was so unique and special - in other words - what they fuss was all about in Chet's playing;

[6] Every facet of Chet's approach to music is touched on in de Valk's Chet bio from his choice of trumpets, to his technique in employing the valves of the instrument, his use of microphones, et. al. all of which is combined to provide the reader with rarely understood insights into the mechanical process of making Jazz;

[7] De Valk makes every effort at an honest appraisal of Chet's personal life and how it affected his music and this objectivity serves to prevent the extremes of hero-worship or warts-an-all-tell all that plagues many biographies of Jazz musicians noted for their drug addictions;

[8] De Valk introduces some little discussed factors that influenced Chet to spend his later career in Europe such as the reverse discrimination, Black Nationalism, and complete dismissal of Baker's "Cool School" style of Jazz as superficial by major American Jazz critics, all of which were very prevalent in the America of the 1970s when Chet was considering returning to the US;

[9] The frank and candid discography contains every major recording that Baker appeared on and helps guide the Jazz fan to Chet's better recorded efforts;

[10] The book does not contain a bibliography, but it closes with fully annotated footnotes for each chapter.

This book should serve as a model for how to write a biography about a Jazz musician because it is descriptively strong in its analysis of the music while, at the same time, providing accurate and abundant information about the musician's life, both personal and professional.

If a Jazz fan is looking for a guide to the evolution of Chet Baker's music as manifested through the major phases of his career, this is the book to get. Jazz musicians are their music and Jeroen de Valk's comprehensive biography proves to be another example of why this is so.