Chet Baker - Chet Baker Sings (1985 Japanese Pacific Jazz Mono LP)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: VG+ (Original Shrink Wrap)
Obi: VG+

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Chet Baker - Chet Baker Sings | Vinyl LP - 1985 Japanese Toshiba EMI Pacific Jazz Mono Reissue (PAJ-70224, Jazz Vocal From The West Series, Pure Mono Master Without 1962 Joe Pass Guitar Overdubs, with OBI and Insert)

Chet Baker was 24 years old when he walked into Capitol Studios in Hollywood on 15 February 1954 to record his first vocal session. He had already broken through the year before with Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet and the Pacific Jazz catalogue Richard Bock was building around him, and he had a face that the West Coast press was already comparing to James Dean. But nothing in his trumpet work, no matter how much it borrowed from the cool aesthetic, prepared the audience for what came out of his mouth when he sang. The voice was breathy, almost without vibrato, sexually ambiguous, and entirely his own. Russ Freeman, his musical partner from the Mulligan days, sat at the piano and built the harmonic settings around him. The 1954 session produced the eight tracks that fill Side B of this LP. Two and a half years later, on 23 and 30 July 1956, Baker reconvened with Freeman at the Forum Theatre in Los Angeles to record six more for the expanded 12" version. Bock sequenced these as Side A. The result has remained one of the most influential vocal jazz albums ever made, equally beloved by listeners who grew up with it and equally dismissed by jazz purists who could never quite forgive Baker for being prettier than they thought a jazz singer should be.

The pressing history of Chet Baker Sings matters in a way that most album histories don't. The original 1954 and 1956 sessions were both recorded in mono. In 1962, with the stereo era in full swing and the record still selling, Pacific Jazz commissioned Joe Pass to overdub a guitar part onto the existing mono masters, then mixed the result to fake stereo. The 1962 ST-1222 stereo issue with Joe Pass guitar has been the most widely-distributed version of the album ever since, and most reissues across the decades have used that overdubbed master. This 1985 Toshiba EMI pressing in the Jazz Vocal From The West series does the opposite: it goes back to the original 1956 mono master tape, with no Joe Pass guitar dubbed in. The result is what Baker and Freeman actually played in 1954 and 1956, in mono, exactly as it was recorded. Swing Journal awarded it their Seal of Approval. The copy comes with the original obi strip and the fold-out insert with Japanese liner notes and is still in it's original shrink wrap.