This recording documents a concert in Tokyo that took place shortly before Chet Baker's tragic death. Unlike most recordings of his last months, this one shows him to have still been in complete control of his musical faculties, playing and singing not just beautifully and well, but with energy and even speed despite his deteriorating health. Really great sounding record, a must have!

• Limited Edition
• King Record Japan
• Audiophile Vinyl

Chet Baker in Tokyo is a live album by jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker, recorded at Showa Women's University's Hitomi Memorial Hall. Released only eleven months before his death, it has been hailed as, "A glorious moment in Chet Baker's twilight."

"Like a number of live Chet Baker albums released over the last ten years, this one documents a concert that took place shortly before his tragic death (having recently resumed his drug habit, he fell from a hotel room window in 1988). Unlike most of them, though, this one shows him to have still been in complete control of his musical faculties, playing not just beautifully and well, but with energy and even speed despite his deteriorating health. His singing, too, sounds uncannily like that of the quiet young sex symbol he'd been in the 1950s, before age and heroin ravaged his face and emptied his eyes. Accompanied beautifully by pianist Harold Danko, bassist Hein Van Der Geyn and drummer John Engels, Baker plays a surprisingly varied set, from Jimmy Heath's hard bop standard "For Minors Only" to "Four" by Miles Davis and the delicately anguished "Almost Blue," written for him by Elvis Costello. Here he still plays with the sweet, dry tone that made him famous and helped to define an entire school of West Coast jazz, and sings in a voice remarkably similar to that of his trumpet. Given its context, you can't miss the poignancy of this recording; but the playing is so sweet and happy that it's also impossible to resist the spirit in which these performances were offered - a spirit which was anything but sad." - All Music

John Vinocur of The New York Times praised the album, saying:

"The performances are remarkable because they take in, at the highest level, everything that people said Chet could do - play ballads with almost painful, poetic eloquence - and what many said he could not: blow hard and tough enough so as to make the trumpet sound its essence."

Musicians:

Chet Baker - Vocals, Trumpet
Harold Danko - Piano
Hein Van Der Geyn - Bass
John Engels - Drums

Track Listing:

1. "Stella by Starlight" - 10:50
2. "For Minors Only" - 7:40
3. "Almost Blue" - 7:53
4. "Portrait in Black and White" - 15:46
5. "My Funny Valentine" - 13:14

Click here to listen to samples on YouTube.com ♫