Which Chet Baker to choose - the cool cat with the lightly swinging California style, or the weatherbeaten, old-before-his-time junkie whose every note told a story?
For me, the latter will always hold more fascination. Sure, the youthful Baker was a dazzlingly intuitive trumpet player - in particular during his time with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet - but something much more poignant resides in the music of late-career Chet.
In 1987, a year before Baker was found dead on the street below the window of his second-storey room at an Amsterdam hotel, American film-maker Bruce Weber started work on a documentary about the horn player's turbulent life.
Baker and a small ensemble comprising Frank Strazzeri (piano), John Leftwich (bass), Ralph Penland (drums) and Nicola Stilo (guitar and flute) recorded a soundtrack.
Chet Baker Sings And Plays From The Film 'Let's Get Lost' moves at one languorous pace. Forget Round Midnight - these are 4am tracks, seemingly formed from little but cool blue smoke. So finely in tune with the master are the support players that they allow him to glide through the set and conserve his energy for when it is most needed. The resulting performances are exceptionally moving.
Which isn't to say this is Baker's best playing, or singing. At times, his grasp is tenuous - the apparent emotional weight of the dozen expertly chosen tracks seems to all but prevent his lips from moving. He voices words as he would notes on his trumpet, lost in reverie.
The material is familiar. All tracks but one - Elvis Costello's Almost Blue - have been given the Baker treatment before.
But none has been given a reading quite like this. From Moon & Sand to Imagination, You're My Thrill, Every Time We Say Goodbye, Blame It On My Youth and Everything Happens To Me, Chet caresses each song with a touch that suggests it might be his last.
