Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 1191 Location: Louisville, KY
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 3:22 am Post subject: Chet Baker warming up/practicing/soundcheck recording
Some of you probably already know of this recording, but this was new to me. I love finding recordings like this! Chet was recorded warming up/practicing before a gig and rehearsing Polkadots and Moonbeams with the rhythm section. He also sound checks the vocal mic and scats towards the end.
Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 1191 Location: Louisville, KY
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:26 am Post subject:
One thing that I think is interesting about this recording is at the 3:00 mark where Chet is practicing ascending diminished scales and then descends down the diminished arpeggio. He then proceeds to put this through the keys going up by half steps.
I think this pulls back the curtain a little bit and reveals that Chet was probably a little more aware of chord/scale relationships than the folklore would have us believe. _________________ "Run towards your problems, not from them"
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1956 Martin Committee Deluxe
1950/60's Couesnon Monopole Flugel
Joined: 24 Feb 2008 Posts: 2642 Location: vista ca
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 9:47 am Post subject:
Chet knee everything. He was not any type of musical illiterate. Check out the video tag at the end of the candy session where he plays my romance with red Mitchell on piano. _________________ Mouthpiece Maker
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Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 1191 Location: Louisville, KY
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 10:38 am Post subject:
lipshurt wrote:
Chet knee everything. He was not any type of musical illiterate. Check out the video tag at the end of the candy session where he plays my romance with red Mitchell on piano.
I am familiar with the performance, I don't understand how this particular performance demonstrates his musical literacy though. They just play My Romance (which presumably Chet's played a million times in his life) and Red throws in a few simple subs, but otherwise, they're just playing a standard tune. I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm really trying to understand your reasoning for choosing this performance as the one that demonstrates that Chet knew theory and didn't just play by ear. _________________ "Run towards your problems, not from them"
Powell Custom Trumpet
1956 Martin Committee Deluxe
1950/60's Couesnon Monopole Flugel
Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Posts: 9003 Location: Hawai`i - Texas
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:47 am Post subject:
lipshurt wrote:
Chet knee everything. He was not any type of musical illiterate. Check out the video tag at the end of the candy session where he plays my romance with red Mitchell on piano.
There's a whole world of music out there that Chet didn't know. _________________ "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird
I really like the tone he gets, almost sounded like a sax when he was practicing those scales. _________________ Bach Strad LR 180-43S ML #315618
Selmer Paris 99 'Radial' #51474
Yamaha YTR-634 #014824
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Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:33 pm Post subject: Chet and changes
I asked Russ Freeman and Jack Montrose about the early fifties sessions Chet was on with them and both said Chet needed to hear the charts first and after that it was locked in. Russ told me Chet really didn't need changes.
Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 2018 Location: Charleston, SC
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 4:44 pm Post subject:
Tony; Thanks (as always) for pitching in. Comments from people that played with someone, like Chet in this instance, are very special.
And it's great to see several threads about Chet lately. His tone is soooo breathy (sorry, had to get my breath there )... it's a refreshing change over what I'm usually focused on. And such a pleasing tone and style. I'm sitting here with a new (to me) Olds Super from '56 or so, just enjoying players from way back and trying to play along with a horn from way back, too.
Just great stuff! _________________ Jonathan Milam
Trumpets: 18043B, 18043*, 18043 Sterling Silver +, 18037 SterlingSilver+, Benge 4x, Olds: '34 Symphony, '47 Super, '52 Recording
Flugle: Strad 182
Puje: American Belle
Cornet: Olds Recording & Super
Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 1191 Location: Louisville, KY
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 5:34 pm Post subject: Re: Chet and changes
Tony Scodwell wrote:
I asked Russ Freeman and Jack Montrose about the early fifties sessions Chet was on with them and both said Chet needed to hear the charts first and after that it was locked in. Russ told me Chet really didn't need changes.
I always wondered how Chet managed to outline the changes so well when he was with Gerry Mulligan's quartet given that there was no chordal instrument in that group for him to even hear the chords ahead of time. I could understand when the group played standards because he could reference a recording, but what about the bands originals where no prior recording existed?
In my minds eye I imagine Mulligan passing out a handwritten lead sheet of one of his new originals with the melody and the chords notated. I imagine Chet sight reading the melody and then taking a solo (with no chords accompanying him) and kind of groping through the tune by ear but not feeling totally confident about his playing because of the missing piano part. And given that the group probably has gigs and a recording session coming up, out of necessity, I imagine him taking the lead sheets home and looking over them, trying to figure out (at least rudimentaly) what the chord symbols on the page mean for him as an improviser.
I don't think Chet was a theory whiz by any means, and I'm sure his ear was what he depended on predominantly. But I also think he had to have some basic understanding of what, say, a C7 was vs CMaj7 while with the Mulligan group. Playing by ear with only a bass would make those two chords very difficult to differentiate, yet Chet never misses.
This is obviously just a hunch, but for me it's an Occam's razor situation, and when I hear him practicing diminished scales and arpeggios, it strengthens my hunch that Chet knew more than he lead on about harmony. _________________ "Run towards your problems, not from them"
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1956 Martin Committee Deluxe
1950/60's Couesnon Monopole Flugel
Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Posts: 9003 Location: Hawai`i - Texas
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 9:45 pm Post subject:
What makes you think he wasn't intuitive about chords just because they could be complex or the changes unconventional? That's what a great ear is about? _________________ "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird
Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 1191 Location: Louisville, KY
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 4:32 am Post subject:
kehaulani wrote:
What makes you think he wasn't intuitive about chords just because they could be complex or the changes unconventional? That's what a great ear is about?
I think he was very intuitive about chords and predominantly played by ear. It's not about complex/unconventional chords, I can see how a good ear could navigate that hurdle. My hunch has to do with how Chet was able to perfectly outline the chord changes in a group with no chordal instrument present (the Mulligan group) for him to even play by ear to.
When he was with the Mulligan group he'd only been playing jazz for about 5 years and about 2 of those 5 years he studied Theory and Harmony at El Camino College, so he had to have picked up something. During those 5 years he was also spending a lot of time hanging and talking music with other jazz musicians who did know harmony, again, he had to have picked up something.
I also remember people saying Chet didn't even know what key a tune was in, he would just ask what the first note was. But I was reading his memoirs (written by Chet himself) and he wrote about playing a tune that was in the key of G. So Chet's own pen revealed that he was at least aware of key centers.
I've also seen photos of Chet playing piano which suggest maybe he knew how to play some chords. There is also a recording of him playing a piano solo on Beatrice with Philip Catherine. Check out this photo of Chet playing a chord in his left hand (chord knowledge) and soloing with his right hand (scale knowledge):
Again, I don't think he was a theory whiz by any means and I do think he was predominantly an ear player. But I do think he had a rudimentary understanding of key centers. There are a lot of signs that indicate Chet probably knew more than what the folklore and mystique surrounding him would lead you to believe.
Of course I could be totally wrong about all of this.
Let me ask you a question, if Chet knew nothing of chord/scale relationships, how do you think he learned those diminished scale/arpeggio exercise he was playing in the recording above? This is genuine, not sarcastic (I always feel like tone is so easy to misconstrue on the internet). _________________ "Run towards your problems, not from them"
Powell Custom Trumpet
1956 Martin Committee Deluxe
1950/60's Couesnon Monopole Flugel
Last edited by craigtrumpet on Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:06 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Posts: 9003 Location: Hawai`i - Texas
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:58 am Post subject:
craigtrumpet wrote:
Let me ask you a question, if Chet knew nothing of chord/scale relationships, how do you think he learned those diminished scale/arpeggio exercise he was playing in the recording above?
Sure. I think he knew it just by playing a lot, hearing it repetitively and discovering by hunt and peck. I mean, as soon as you hear one pattern then you can transpose them, by ear, wherever you want them.
When I was in D.C., I used to get together with another composer and we would play complex, atonal, vertical structures back and forth for fun, transcribing them as we went along. This was atonal music. If we could do it by ear, I believe Chet could do something similar with tonal music. _________________ "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird
Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 1191 Location: Louisville, KY
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:23 am Post subject:
kehaulani wrote:
craigtrumpet wrote:
Let me ask you a question, if Chet knew nothing of chord/scale relationships, how do you think he learned those diminished scale/arpeggio exercise he was playing in the recording above?
Sure. I think he knew it just by playing a lot, hearing it repetitively and discovering by hunt and peck. I mean, as soon as you hear one pattern then you can transpose them, by ear, wherever you want them.
When I was in D.C., I used to get together with another composer and we would play complex, atonal, vertical structures back and forth for fun, transcribing them as we went along. This was atonal music. If we could do it by ear, I believe Chet could do something similar with tonal music.
I can dig that. What do you think about him outlining the harmony in Mulligans group without a piano player to feed the harmony to him? How do you think he played those changes by ear when the changes weren't there? _________________ "Run towards your problems, not from them"
Powell Custom Trumpet
1956 Martin Committee Deluxe
1950/60's Couesnon Monopole Flugel
Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Posts: 9003 Location: Hawai`i - Texas
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:52 am Post subject:
I'm speculating now, just for the case of discussion.
If I remember, those tunes all had conventional chord changes. Also, what we hear recorded was not the first time Chet had heard and played those tunes. He had some time of discovery before ever getting on stage or into a recording studio. By then, I think he would have had the tunes worked out.
I would add, though, that almost all of his playing was diatonic, no Woody Shaw or other harmonic innovations. It made the music more accessible to the player.
Please don't think I'm minimizing his talent. He could do that on a very high level when others would have to struggle a bit with it. But difficulty notwithstanding, he could do it and that's part of his intuitive genius. _________________ "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird
Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 1191 Location: Louisville, KY
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 9:02 am Post subject:
kehaulani wrote:
I'm speculating now, just for the case of discussion.
If I remember, those tunes all had conventional chord changes. Also, what we hear recorded was not the first time Chet had heard and played those tunes. He had some time of discovery before ever getting on stage or into a recording studio. By then, I think he would have had the tunes worked out.
I would add, though, that almost all of his playing was diatonic, no Woody Shaw or other harmonic innovations. It made the music more accessible to the player.
Please don't think I'm minimizing his talent. He could do that on a very high level when others would have to struggle a bit with it. But difficulty notwithstanding, he could do it and that's part of his intuitive genius.
Nice, thanks for sharing your thoughts! _________________ "Run towards your problems, not from them"
Powell Custom Trumpet
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1950/60's Couesnon Monopole Flugel
Joined: 28 Dec 2001 Posts: 6437 Location: AVL|NC|USA
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 12:05 pm Post subject:
Craig, your understanding sorta falls in line with what I deduced many years ago when I got the "Smokin'" and "Boppin'" with Chet Baker Quintet albums. They're the ones with George Coleman, in case you're familiar with them.
On the bridge of Have You Met Miss Jones, if memory serves, Chet sorta fell apart every time it came around for him.
But it reminded me of the "Bird With The Herd" bootleg from Sweden where Bird tries blowing over the changes to Four Brothers and similarly fell apart on the bridge to that.
Those both led me to believe that, although these guys were both stellar players, there were situations where the changes took their ears by surprise and by the time they figured out what was going on, it was too late. The "damage" had been done.
Reassures me that they were, indeed, mortal after all. Their "Tommy Flanagan/Giant Steps" moment, if you will.
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