You would enjoy the novel 'But Beautiful', which consists of fictionalised vignettes of various jazz musicians, including Chet Baker and his (many) lovers. It's the only novel I've seen which has its own 'selected discography'. For me, Chet doesn't stand out because there were *so many* A+ jazz musicians during that period. I think serious jazz people tend to think he was promoted in excess of his actual talent because of the obvious economic incentive for executives at that time to have a handsome white jazz leading man. Two years ago some of his Paris and Cologne recordings were released, which I thought were fantastic but didn't seem to get much attention: https://open.spotify.com/album/0Vq39Tvf8QDZ3aO6H7pRVE?si=OSAf_2dhTrSzIi1VPXp6Cw
oh very cool -- i shall search this novel out -- thanks! i think quite a lot of serious jazz people do really rate him.. but i'm sure his looks definitely helped ha..
You would enjoy the novel 'But Beautiful', which consists of fictionalised vignettes of various jazz musicians, including Chet Baker and his (many) lovers. It's the only novel I've seen which has its own 'selected discography'. For me, Chet doesn't stand out because there were *so many* A+ jazz musicians during that period. I think serious jazz people tend to think he was promoted in excess of his actual talent because of the obvious economic incentive for executives at that time to have a handsome white jazz leading man. Two years ago some of his Paris and Cologne recordings were released, which I thought were fantastic but didn't seem to get much attention: https://open.spotify.com/album/0Vq39Tvf8QDZ3aO6H7pRVE?si=OSAf_2dhTrSzIi1VPXp6Cw
oh very cool -- i shall search this novel out -- thanks! i think quite a lot of serious jazz people do really rate him.. but i'm sure his looks definitely helped ha..