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Chet Baker: gone too soon
Released in May to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the death of Chet Baker, Too Cool: The Life and Music of Chet Baker, as this 12-song set is ambitiously titled, is a new album that combines trumpet and vocals on material written by Chet Baker, with other songs by Sue Richardson and one a fan-girl anthem called ‘Adored’ the Sussex-based Richardson has co-written with Annette Keen. The trumpeter, who has worked with Mina Agossi and Ian Shaw in recent years and whose brassy trumpet style is forthright and bold, is joined by a modern mainstream band with Karen Sharp on baritone saxophone making her presence felt on Richardson’s tune ‘All Through
The Night’.
Sue Richardson
It’s pretty laid back stuff, as you can imagine, and fairly undemanding at times although very well meant. Richardson’s singing on ‘My Funny Valentine’ and on the bittersweet ‘Chetty’s Lullaby’ are the pick of the vocals. Sue’s husband Neal, who also produced the record, accompanies effectively on piano and Rhodes while Jazz Jamaica’s Rod Youngs on drums drives the band along, with George Trebar’s double bass a lively presence. There’s guest guitar from Andy Drudy as well as the presence of Karen Sharp referred to above. The album could do, it’s fair to say, with a bit more of the dark side of Chet on display, but maybe that would be pushing everyone’s luck that bit too far. Chet certainly pushed his, as most great artists inevitably do. Their tragedy, but our guilty reward in the music and artistry they leave behind.
Sue Richardson plays a special lunchtime show in Ronnie Scott’s on 19 May, a club Chet himself performed in. Watch this extraordinary video of Chet Baker at Ronnie Scott’s in 1986 with footage filmed just two years before the trumpeter’s untimely passing in Amsterdam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6IiFpOVBjU