Quartet: Russ Freeman/Chet Baker [Import] [Limited Edition] [Original recording remastered]

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Japanese exclusive remastered reissue packaged in a miniature LP sleeve.

Quartet: Russ Freeman/Chet Baker, Music, Chet Baker Quartet, Cool, Jazz, Pop, Vocal Jazz, West Coast Jazz

Chet Baker Quartet Featuring Russ Freeman
Average customer rating:

Chetophobes should give this one a try...

A Pairing Made In Heaven!

Early Chet at His Best

This is top notch West Coast playing

Chet baker is God with a trumpet

Chet Baker Quartet Featuring Russ Freeman
Chet Baker , and Russ Freeman
Manufacturer: Blue Note Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000006DGD
Release Date: 1998-05-05

Tracks:

Isn't It Romantic
The Lamp Is Low
This Time The Dream's On Me
Maid In Mexico
Russ Job
Imagination
Long Ago & Far Away (10' LP Take)
Long Ago & Far Away (12' LP Take)
Carson City Stage
Easy To Love
Batter Up
No Ties (10' LP Take)
No Ties (12' LP Take)
All The Things You Are
The Thrill Is Gone (10' LP Take)
The Thrill Is Gone (12' LP Take)
Band Aid
Beas's Flat
Moon Love (10' LP Take)
Moon Love (12' LP Take)
Happy Little Sunbeam
Happy Little Sunbeam (Alt. Take)
I Fall In Love To Easily
Winter Wonderland (78 Take)
Winter Wonderland (LP Take)

Album Description

UK reissue of this 1956 album from pianist Russ Freeman (not to be confused with the Rippingtons guitarist) and trumpeter Chet Baker. Eight tracks including 'Love Nest', 'Lush Life', 'Say When' and more. Pacific Jazz. 2006.

Customer Reviews:

Chetophobes should give this one a try..........2006-05-03

This album was a very pleasant surprise. Without ever having actually heard him, I had formed a vaguely negative conception of Chet Baker's playing--white kid,West Coast,"cool school",couldn't really play the trumpet at all well,soft plaintive tone and a one-octave range,even Gerry Mulligan said he had no conception of what it meant to be a serious musician,etc.etc. It's true that as a trumpet technician, he's not even remotely in the same class as Dizzy Gillespie,Fats Navarro,Clifford Brown, or even a randomly selected Berklee trumpet major. But at least on this CD,he plays with a lot of drive,swings hard, has a lot of good melodic ideas and enough technique to execute them. All the talk about his flowing, lyrical lines has,it turns out,a solid basis in fact.He was not a disciplined well-schooled musician, but he had a gift for melody that no amount of study and practice can produce. I knew Russ Freeman only from some rather eccentric interjections on a few big-band tunes, but he turns out to have been a fine pianist,with real drive and authority. In short,this is quite a good album,well worth trying out,particularly if you currently share my former prejudice against Baker.[I should add that his singing,here mercifully confined to one track,strikes me as downright creepy; I gather I'm not alone in thinking this.On the evidence of this CD,one should stick to the trumpet playing.]

A Pairing Made In Heaven!.......2000-05-30

Pairing Chet Baker with Russ Freeman in the '50s resulted in some of the most gorgeous recordings of any era. Baker was an icon of the jazz world for his trumpet playing, his singing (almost sounding like a trumpet) and his incredible looks, which really stood out in the rather homely jazz world (jazz guys do not usually look like rock stars!). Russ Freeman was a fabulous pianist plus also a composer. Together the two men played the most romantic, most emotional music extant in jazz. Theirs is not the "intellectual" jazz as popularized by Dave Brubeck. Warning: Buying one Chet Baker CD can be dangerous for the wallet. Once you own one of his discs, you will want all of them. I certainly did and now have the cd collection to prove it! I also bought every recording I was able to find that he did with Russ Freeman.

Early Chet at His Best.......2000-03-31

These recordings, made between February and October 1953, feature Baker at the threshold of his carreer and vividly show his ceativity and promise. Anyone who questions why he continues to be held in such high esteem, should find the answer in listening to this CD.

There's a story that Charlie Parker, upon returning to New York from a trip to California, warned Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis about a new, young trumpet player out there named Chet Baker. These recordings demonstrate that the warning was justified.

This is top notch West Coast playing.......1999-12-13

This disc is actually "Quartet: Russ Freeman and Chet Baker" & is a Russ Freeman session issued under Chet's name. Russ composed 6 of the 8 tunes & he makes Chet work for his wages.

The album opens amusingly with "Love Nest," otherwise known as the theme for the Burns & Allen Show. Russ takes the lovely "Summer Sketch" solo half of the way through, then bringing Chet in for no more than a wonderfully pensive turn at the melody. That's followed by, for me, the album's two most swinging cuts, "An Afternoon at Home" & "Say When." They also pay homage to Billy Strayhorn with a romantic arrangement of "Lush Life."

This is top notch West Coast playing, with Shelly Manne on sticks & Leroy Vinnegar on big fiddle. Recorded in 1956. No singing. Check out the thumbnails on the insert by photographer William Claxton then check out the collections of great photos Claxton shot of this era & these talented musicians.

Bob Rixon, WFMU

Chet baker is God with a trumpet.......1999-03-10

He is the master of trumpet jazz. This is the most orginal CD I have ever heard. His playing is better than people give him credit for. This is what jazz in the 1950's was like. This is how Jazz should be !