My introduction to Chet Baker was a bit unorthodox: I wasn’t in a jazz club or flipping through the stacks at a record store; I was sitting on my father’s couch watching Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso.” In this particular episode of the show, the titular Lasso and his gaggle of misfit soccer players spend a few days galavanting around Amsterdam. A montage ensues—beloved characters learn to ride bikes, fall in love, take shots of vanilla vodka at a gay bar, achieve their dreams of playing upright bass with a real jazz band and commandeer the lobby of a hotel to have a team-wide pillow fight. It’s all very heartwarming–almost cloying–and underscored by Baker’s “Let’s Get Lost.” The scene brought me to tears, mainly because of “Let’s Get Lost.” I thought it was the most beautiful song I had ever heard.
That crooning, molasses voice is something I haven’t been able to get out of my head since. Baker sings as if he just discovered he could, or like a child shoved onto the stage at a school talent show—his voice is lethargic, fragile, a bit rough around the edges, and yet is doused in so much passion that every word of every song feels like it was pulled out of a dream. In “Chet Baker Sings and Plays,” Baker removes the schmaltz from heartburn-inducingly saccharine jazz standards like “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “I Wish I Knew” and glides over every line with a refreshing simplicity.
Baker, nicknamed “The Prince of Cool,” is best known as a trumpeter and released seven instrumental albums before “Chet Baker Sings” in 1954. He would release another four instrumental albums before “Chet Baker Sings and Plays” the following year. These two albums, in which Baker only sang at the behest of his mother, who loved his voice, would become jazz classics. What Baker lacks in showmanship, he makes up for in heart, and his cult-following helped cement him as one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time.
Standout Track: “Let’s Get Lost”
“Let’s Get Lost” champions turning your back on the world and diving head-first into a burgeoning romance. Baker’s listless voice makes the giddy, head-in-the-clouds lyrics feel youthful and immature—in a good way. “Let’s Get Lost” feels like watching the sun come up after a night out, and it probably is the most beautiful song I have ever heard.
