Chet Baker Sings (1956) Chet Baker

Written by Meenakshi Nirmalan

Much of my life now revolves around jazz, both the culture of playing and listening to it. It’s surprising that I hadn’t explored the genre until I was 16- I almost exclusively listened to rock during my early teenage years. Of course, I had heard Take Five and various renditions of Summertime, like everyone else. However, I had never taken the time to listen to a full jazz album. I was initially compelled to explore jazz because for A Level Drama, my group and I decided to set our piece during the 1930s, in New York. Jazz was an up-and-coming genre in the 1930s so naturally, our piece had a jazz soundtrack. I was browsing mellow jazz playlists to study to, and many of these were filled with Chet Baker pieces. This eventually led me to listen to all the tracks on Chet Baker Sings from start to finish.

Prior to recording this album, Chet Baker was primarily recognised for his trumpet playing. This was Baker’s first full length album, performing both vocals and trumpet, demonstrating a great sense of depth. The soundscape is mellow and soft, whilst still having a profound, piercing sadness to it, which is why Chet Baker Sings is one of my favourite jazz albums. One of the first aspects I noticed was how quiet the drums are throughout the whole album. As a drummer who frequently dabbles in jazz, oftentimes when I listen to jazz albums I predominantly focus on the sound of the drumming. I normally tune into how the drums complement and enhance the sound of the other instruments; I listen to the way jazz drumming is incredibly melodic, noticing all the shapes and textures created through percussion. All the other instruments often take a backseat in my personal listening experience. However, Chet Baker Sings is an album that forces me to listen to jazz from a different angle. We consistently hear brush strokes on the snare and occasional light flourishes of the cymbals. Occasionally we hear a switch from brushes to sticks, for example, in That Old Feeling. Overall, though, the drumming is minimalistic and subtle, just keeping time and illuminating Chet Baker’s vocals.

A real strength to this album is the quality of lyrics and storytelling. The language is simple, yet evocative, softly melancholic. There is a crisp clarity to the whole album, lyrically and instrumentally, which takes the listener on a journey. Broadly speaking, the first half of the album explores infatuation and idealisation, and the second half tackles loss. It would not be unfair to call the lyrics on Chet Baker Sings overly naïve in the earlier tracks, and self-pitying towards the end. However, that’s the beauty of this album: it captures the innocence of youth. It’s worth bearing in mind that many of these songs aren’t originally Chet Baker’s; they are classic jazz standards and can be found in The Real Book.

My favourite track on this album is undoubtedly The Thrill is Gone. The song begins with just the keys and soon after, Chet Baker lamentfully starts singing. The lyrics are simple. I find it poignant when Baker sings “I can see it in your eyes / I can hear it in your sighs / Feel your touch and realise / The thrill is gone”. This perfectly captures the feeling of falling out of love, whether with a person, or simply, with anything that once brought comfort to your former self. This idea is expanded when he goes on to sing: “ Love was grand when love was new / Birds were singing, skies were blue / Now it don’t appeal to you”, describing the process of the magical turning into the mundane. Baker’s tone is just right. There is a soft, resigned quality to the way he sings. He doesn’t try to fight the process; he simply acknowledges that the thrill has gone, and understands that it is time to let go. Moreover, Chet Baker’s vocals are interspersed with short melodic phrases on the trumpet after each musical phrase. This adds extra texture, extra colour, giving The Thrill is Gone a conversational feel. I thought this was effective and yet again very simple. This provides a nice contrast from the structure of other songs, separating the vocals and the trumpet solos into distinct blocks.

My Funny Valentine is the most famous jazz standard on this album. I still haven’t found a rendition of this piece better than Chet Baker’s and it remains one of my favourite tracks from the album. It’s a rhythmically steady piece. You can only hear the brushstrokes on the snare if you listen closely, creating a profound sadness, a sadness that arises from the track’s subtlety. Chet Baker sings,“your looks are laughable / unphotographable / Yet you’re my favourite work of art”, which I find intriguing. At surface level, it’s an unusual sentiment to direct towards your beloved. However, it is not uncommon, as throughout time, art has explored similar themes, most notably, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…”). Moreover, many jazz standards explore the theme of idealisation in love and how people tend to put their partners on pedestals, which is presented throughout Chet Baker Sings. I also love the songs It’s Always You and There Will Never Be Another You. Although they are located at opposite ends of the album, both explore how everything reminds them of their beloved. The album’s final track, Look For The Silver Lining is an outlier, if you solely look at meaning. It’s the most optimistic track, yet perhaps the most in touch with reality in an interesting way to round the album. It alludes to a shedding of old identities; the speaker ceases to view life through the lens of the relationship, instead “finding the sunny side of life” by moving onto pastures new. In closing, Chet Baker Sings is a soft, yet profound body of work. We are taken on a musical, lyrical journey through love and lovelessness, universal to all.