Chet Baker

Chet Baker recorded a series of sessions in Milan, Italy, in 1959. Italian musician Ezio Leoni remembered the sessions and the months that followed:“Despite his return to drugs, his class had never been affected and he was highly satisfied and enthusiastic about the work recorded. In the summer of 1960, the drug problem resurfaced. Sergio Bernadini, owner of the Bussola in Focette, hired him for the summer season at the Bussolotto, the sophisticated piano bar of the famous club, alongside Romano Mussolini’s trio with Carlo Loffredo on the double bass and Roberto Podio on the drums. Bernardini also took an interest in Chet’s health and had him treated in a clinic in Lucca by a doctor who gradually weaned him off drugs with a treatment based on methadone at a day hospital, which enabled him to work at the Bussolotto in the evenings.

One night he was found unconscious and bleeding in the toilet of a service station, having hurt himself injecting drugs. The police arrested him, an operation which involved other peopleand even his wife Halima for having helped Chet to procure drugs. At the ensuingcourt case he was sentenced to sixteen months imprisonment, and was released on December 15, 1961.” Three weeks after being released, Baker recorded four vocal tracks with an orchestra conducted by Ennio Morricone (on January 1, 1962) and the present LP (on January 5, 1962) with a group of highly talented European musicians, including two Belgian stars: tenor saxophonist, flutist and composer Bobby Jaspar, and guitarist René Thomas. Both musicians had their own drug problems (Jaspar would die from a heart attack on February 28, 1963, at the age of 37; Thomas would follow on January 3, 1975, aged 47).