'Welcome Back' by Wolfgang Lackerschmid and Chet Baker
What’s astonishing is that such beautiful music could have emerged from such a rough life. Chet Baker was a young star of ‘50s cool jazz with a boyish magazine-cover face and a whispery melancholy tone in his trumpet and his voice. By 1959 he was hooked on smack; he spent many nights in jail and many months in prison. In a drug deal gone bad, he was stomped, teeth smashed and lip busted. And he had to pawn his horn to survive.
Thanks to the kindness of Dizzy Gillespie and a course of methadone, Baker was back on the road by the end of the ‘70s.
Recorded in 1987, nine months before his death, Welcome Back represents the final phase of the long-running collaboration between Baker and German vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid. The accompaniment on these original instrumentals (by Baker, Lackerschmid and others) is sparse; translucent string bass holds up the bottom, drums and guitar are inconspicuous and Italian flutist Nicola Stylo trades solos with Baker’s cool, precise trumpeting.
The music, much of it probably originating in improvisations, has the shiny beauty of a jazz score for a ‘60s movie (Henry Mancini comes to mind) or melodies tossed away by Burt Bacharach. The CD release includes an alternative take of the title cut.
