For those unaware, Chet Baker (1929–1988) showed with his music that little bit of dark substance that exists in the human being - the shadow side - just as very few other jazz musicians have been able to do.

However, such a reading that looks for traces of anguish and self-destruction in every note - and which has also been translated into a couple of films - has ended up overshadowing something very important: namely, that Chet Baker was a top-notch jazz musician, the creator of a unique and personal poetics, an interpreter who did not wallow in his own torments but who also knew how to take less introspective paths, including a superfine and very lively swing.

Chet Baker’s music had characteristics of its own. Of a bebop nature in the fast pieces, he had in solos that complex and pulsating way that characterized this style. He differed from it in the soft timbre of the trumpet, which rarely indulged in the flare-ups typical of the boppers, and above all for the insistent use of pauses. These were precisely one of the cornerstones of his musical language.

In the ballads the trumpeter-singer expanded them to the point of absurdity (and so did with the notes), making them spaces charged of meaning, as can be seen in the somber I’m a Fool to Want You, made famous by Billie Holiday, and also in the serene In a Sentimental Mood.

In this final phase of his career, Baker often liked to have groups without drums with him because, in addition to allowing him to maintain a muffled volume in his singing and trumpet playing, the drumless situation guaranteed him greater freedom. Only the double bass player was left to keep time, a role here entrusted to a solid Knauer.

In Ferrara, a sensitive French pianist, Michel Graillier, took the stage; in those years he was looking for a synthesis between the energy of McCoy Tyner and the harmonic language of Bill Evans. Finally, the presence of a piano allowed Stilo to limit the use of the other harmonic instrument, the guitar, in favor of the flute.

1. Night Bird
2. Conception
3. Almost Blue
4. I’m A Fool To Want You
5. You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To
6. But Not For Me
7. In A Sentimental Mood
8. Just Friends
9. Margarine
10. Arborway
11. Zingaro

For me, as I am sure thousands and thousands of others, Chet Baker left a lasting legacy as a seminal figure in 1950s cool jazz and West Coast jazz, celebrated for his intimate, lyrical trumpet style and soft, emotive vocals.

Known as the Prince of Cool or West Coast Miles Davis, his work on classics like Chet Baker Sings (1954) established a deeply personal, melodic sound that bridged jazz and popular music.

Here on Shine, recorded live on December 9th, 1987 in Teatro Estense Ferrara, and now inclusive of 3 bonus tracks on this CD version (Margarine, Arborway, and Zingaro), Baker opens on the soft, almost inquisitively probingly trumpet work of Night bird and the flourishing Conception and then we get a track that expresses perfectly how sadness speaks, straight to the depths of the soul on Almost Blue, one of his best tunes I’m A Fool To Want You and a lushly crafted, complete with baritone sax You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To.

Along next is the tastefully effective But Not For Me and the sadly sobering notes and jazz tones of In A Sentimental Mood and they are in turn backed seamlessly by a track that features one of the best trumpet solos ever, Just Friends, the CD now rounding out on three bonus cuts: the fervently masterful Margarine, the cool, smooth jazz of Arborway, closing on a track that perfectly capture the longing of every broken heart that there has ever been, Zingaro.

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