A performance analysis of selected works for trumpet by Chet Baker.

Abstract

Beginning in 1952 and continuing through 1988, the career of Chet Baker was well known and widely celebrated in the jazz community. By March 1954, Baker was voted the best trumpet player in jazz (various music magazines, readers and critics polls). Born December 23, 1929, Yale Oklahoma, Baker (largely self-taught) became a virtual figurehead in the West Coast style of Cool Jazz. The purpose of this study was to analyze selected improvisational performances recorded by Chet Baker. An effort was made to determine stylistic differences among the performances studied. Five different recordings of "My Funny Valentine" by Rogers and Hart were utilized toward this end. Examples include the 1953 recording with the Gerry Mulligan "pianoless" quarter, the 1954 vocal recording with Russ Freeman, Carson Smith, and Bob Neel, the 1974 Carnegie Hall comeback recording with Gerry Mulligan, and one vocal as well as one instrumental recording from his last major authorized concert/recording at the Funkhaus, Hannover, Germany. This last concert took place approximately two weeks before Baker's death on May 13, 1988. Primary musical characteristics were compared and contrasted. Discernable degrees of change over the course of the major part of the artists' career were noted. Transcriptions relating to these five examples are not available from any other source and provide evidence of the artistic development of heretofore undocumented musical endeavor.