Shine

Limited double hand-numbered 180gm vinyl LP pressing housed in gatefold jacket. Chet Baker showed with his music that little bit of dark substance that exists in the human being - the shadow side - just as very few other jazz musicians have been able to do. However, such a reading that looks for traces of anguish and self-destruction in every note - and which has also been translated into a couple of films - has ended up overshadowing something very important: namely, that Chet Baker was a top-notch jazz musician, the creator of a unique and personal poetics, an interpreter who did not wallow in his own torments but who also knew how to take less introspective paths, including a superfine and very lively swing. In this final phase of his career, Baker often liked to have groups without drums with him because, in addition to allowing him to maintain a muffled volume in his singing and trumpet playing, the drumless situation guaranteed him greater freedom. Only the double bass player was left to keep time, a role here entrusted to a solid Knauer. In Ferrara, a sensitive French pianist, Michel Graillier, took the stage; in those years he was looking for a synthesis between the energy of McCoy Tyner and the harmonic language of Bill Evans. Finally, the presence of a piano allowed Stilo to limit the use of the other harmonic instrument, the guitar, in favor of the flute.