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A young man sits on the window ledge holding his Conn Constellation and blowing an inspired melody from the bell that draws a large group of people captivated by the lyricism of this music, almost as if it were the Pied Piper's tune from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.
But today I won’t tell you a fairy tale, instead a true story. A story without a happy ending.
A little later, the same young man with the trumpet, escorted by the prison police, enters the city prison. His details are noted from his American passport: Chesney Henry Baker Jr. born in Yale, Oklahoma on December 23, 1929, profession jazz musician. We are in Italy. We are in Lucca, and it is the last months of 1960.
Yet in 1955 DownBeat elected him America’s best trumpeter, taking the title from the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. That's why just three years earlier, Gerry Mulligan, with full awareness and foresight, strongly wanted him in his piano-less quartet.
At the same time in LA, the “dream factory” wanted him as the new James Dean, enticing him with tempting offers to exploit his great beauty and his poete maudit nature. Cinecittà offered him a cameo in Lucio Fulci's musicarello “Urlatori alla Sbarra” where, embracing his trumpet while lying in a bathtub, he desperately tries to sleep while Mina and Celentano, accompanied by an unlikely band, rehearse the piece presented by Wilma De Angelis and Betty Curtis at the 1959 Sanremo Festival “Nessuno ti giuro nessuno.” It wasn't enough. Piero Umiliani called him to record the soundtrack for “Audace Colpo dei Soliti Ignoti,” yet another pearl of Italian Neorealism signed by Nanni Loy.
But Chet wants to live his life always on the edge and play his music always as a free artist. He does so even while in prison, thanks to the fact that he is allowed to practice for a few hours a day. The magic of his music brings beauty inside and around those walls of atonement.
When, after sixteen months, he leaves prison, the young and talented Ennio Morricone, the diamond of RCA, arranges his new album “Chet is Back.” In Rome, Milan, and Versilia at every performance the audience goes wild. Especially the women who love him madly. Beautiful women who, out of an innate spirit of maternal protection, try until the end to save him from his inescapable destiny.
In his own way, Chet loved them too. But his greatest love, the one that lasted throughout his life, was only one: heroin.
His entire existence can be condensed in the expression: “Let’s Get Lost” which Bruce Weber masterfully crystallized in a poignant black and white documentary in 1988.
“Soft Journey” is a cool jazz album produced by Enrico Pieranunzi, recorded between December 1979 and January 1980 for Edi-Pan Records at Emmequattro Studios in Rome.
The six tracks of the album are the result of the first and fruitful artistic collaboration between the two musicians. Upon its release, it was met with great enthusiasm from the public and interest from critics but soon became a cult record for collectors, very difficult to find due to the bankruptcy of the Edi-Pan record company (consider that it was only reissued in 2008 by EGEA Records).
The session musicians alongside Chet are: Maurizio Gianmarco on sax and the young and talented Riccardo Del Fra on double bass and Roberto Gatto on drums.
Pieranunzi, a pianist of great technique and cohesion ability, wrote “Soft Journey” specifically considering Baker's ability to create profound emotion with his trumpet through his long and subdued notes. The soft tones of the soprano sax and the velvety piano highlight this atmosphere suspended between lyricism and mild euphoria. Pieranunzi stated that this album was the watershed of his artistic evolution from: “a strong and fast sound like McCoy Tyner, very modal, very blues, impetuous and with many notes” towards a sound that places “the narrative importance of melody” at its center.
“Animali Diurni” (M. Giammarco) features Baker as both player and singer, with his inimitable ability to follow the melody with great lyricism.
“Brown Can Dance” (E. Pieranunzi), a classic blues culminating in a Hard Bop plateau, concludes side A.
Side B begins with Chet's tour de force: “My Funny Valentine” (L. Hart/R. Rodgers). In my opinion, the best execution of this piece both for emotional interpretation, and for the harmony between the vocal execution and the instrumental part.
In “Night Bird” (E. Pieranunzi), a minor key blues, Baker's passion for this piece, often present in his subsequent recordings, is immediately perceptible.
It ends with “Fairy Flowers” written by Pieranunzi to commemorate the passing of Mingus. This piece is also of great emotional intensity due to the interplay between the piano and trumpet.
This summer I wanted to follow in Chet's footsteps all the way to Amsterdam. From the window ledge of the Prins Hendrik Hotel, where on the night of May 13, 1988, he played his last trumpet solo, to the foot of the plaque placed in his memory where I lay a black tulip, a symbol of eternal love for his music: “... Stay little Valentine stay ...”.
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