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#1 2016-04-16 09:05:21

Chipper
Member
From: Charm City
Posts: 1538

Chet Baker

He's not my favorite jazz musician, and while I know the filmmakers have taken liberties, I'm nonetheless looking forward to this thing called Born to Be Blue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2JAW7L04C0

Looks like some respectable acting from Ethan Hawkes.

Coming next weekend to our local "arty" film place.

Last edited by Chipper (2016-04-16 09:06:35)

 

#2 2016-04-16 12:43:43

4F Hepcat
THE Cat
Posts: 14333

Re: Chet Baker

I am looking forward to this, also now the Miles Davis film, knowing now the gangster elements are just a hook for the real stuff.

You have to take liberties for dramatic effect, this issue sadly, stopped Laurie Pepper giving the rights to Hollywood to film the life of Art Pepper based on Straight Life with Johnny Depp interested in the lead. She obviously had her reasons.

I do like Baker immensely, as a jazz musician and not just the bad boy junky mystique. I am trying to remember when I first came across Baker's But Not For Me, it was on a compilation, I was thinking it may have been Blue Note's California Cool, but that was from 1993, I thought it was a little earlier than that, perhaps not. But I do remember I had borrowed my dad's car and I was on the way to the Chester film festival and it blew me away. Literally, a different way of being. It was that powerful, unlike anything I had heard before. Here was someone operating, completely and utterly in a strain of the cool. Jazz had been seemingly dead for a long time, other than explorations by The Style Council and some of Sting's live stuff, it wasn't part of our culture. The exception of course was Elvis Costello's Shipbuilding which had Chet's trumpet solo.

With Baker you get this: the intrepid youthful effervescence bright young thing punching above his weight who then comes back from Europe fully formed, but all H'd up after the death of Twardzik and then you get a period of junky genius with that horn that floats for all eternity on the high and then his strength goes and he's gone, really gone up until the comeback in 1974. Then he makes a move: to distil and refine a pure vision of the cool - baroque chamber cool jazz that enabled him to stay true to his true love of heroin.

With Chet Baker, as with Charlie Parker, the music is closely related to the heroin high and addiction. It gives the listener a sweet taste of the freedom of the high, with none of the nasty side effects. Other junky musicians, such as Art Pepper were genius despite their addictions, with Parker and Baker, they may be great musicians because of their love of heroin.


Vibe-Rations in Spectra-Sonic-Sound

 

#3 2016-04-16 12:45:32

Chipper
Member
From: Charm City
Posts: 1538

Re: Chet Baker

Nice background, Hepcat--thank you. I need to listen to more Chet Baker. I only have one of his LPs.

 

#4 2016-04-16 20:26:06

Worried Man
Member
From: Davebrubeckistan
Posts: 15988

Re: Chet Baker

I just started Deep In a Dream, by James Gavin.


"We close our sto' at a reasonable hour because we figure anybody who would want one of our suits has got time to stroll over here in the daytime." - VP of George Muse Clothing, Atlanta, 1955

 

#5 2016-04-28 08:40:14

Chipper
Member
From: Charm City
Posts: 1538

Re: Chet Baker

Has anyone here made it to this movie yet? We overcommitted ourselves to yardwork last weekend and didn't make it out anywhere, but the local theater graciously has held it over another week.

 

#6 2016-04-28 14:21:50

Worried Man
Member
From: Davebrubeckistan
Posts: 15988

Re: Chet Baker

Are you afraid it's going to be horrible?


"We close our sto' at a reasonable hour because we figure anybody who would want one of our suits has got time to stroll over here in the daytime." - VP of George Muse Clothing, Atlanta, 1955

 

#7 2016-04-28 14:29:58

Chipper
Member
From: Charm City
Posts: 1538

Re: Chet Baker

Not at all. In fact I am sure it will be a glorious experience unlike any other.

Just curious what the great jazz and/or cinema minds here think so far.

 

#8 2016-05-01 07:31:58

Chipper
Member
From: Charm City
Posts: 1538

Re: Chet Baker

Saw it. Liked it!

EDIT: Here's the thing, though. The movie, to my knowledge, departs significantly from what biographers tell us about him. I think the film is a bit disingenuous in this respect. However, seen as a story about a fictional jazz musician, it's worthwhile.

As an aside, I was reminded how lucky we are to have the little venue that brings stuff like this to town. We always feel comfortable there--there's a great lounge with comfy sofas and shelves of film books. We misjudged how long dinner would take, so we got there pretty early, bought our tickets, and settled in with a beer and some reading until show time.

Last edited by Chipper (2016-05-01 08:13:40)

 

#9 2016-05-01 09:54:58

4F Hepcat
THE Cat
Posts: 14333

Re: Chet Baker

Isn't it set during his comeback 73/74?

No one really knows for sure the truth about these events, I mean the getting his teeth smashed and then pumping gas for a living before his comeback.


Vibe-Rations in Spectra-Sonic-Sound

 

#10 2016-05-02 08:14:47

Chipper
Member
From: Charm City
Posts: 1538

Re: Chet Baker

It ends with his '73 comeback at Birdland but the full story spans from when he got his teeth smashed (1966?), and it also flashes back to the '50s through the movie's contrivance of a movie within a movie (Chet is hired to play himself in a black-and-white biopic that never is finished, something I understand did not really happen. This is also how he meets the woman he falls in love with who stays with him as he recovers, etc.).

So the movie definitely takes liberties. But if you give in to the movie just being a good story about a jazz musician, it's really enjoyable. It can also be seen as a really fine love story. Ethan Hawkes and Carmen Ejogo are wonderful together, all the acting feels spot on to me, and the story is captivating without boiling over into melodrama. Plus, the soundtrack is great.

Last edited by Chipper (2016-05-02 08:22:35)

 

#11 2016-05-04 03:44:15

4F Hepcat
THE Cat
Posts: 14333

Re: Chet Baker


Vibe-Rations in Spectra-Sonic-Sound

 

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