"I Get Along Without You Very Well" Chet Baker-The Last Great Concert, My Favorite Songs Vol. 1&2

Chet Baker was the poster boy for the West Coast Jazz movement in the 50's, his devastatingly handsome good looks and overwhelmingly melodic smooth sound made him an easy target for such a title. In the truest sense of the word he was a musician, his skill at the ivories was only surpassed by his brass work and intimate voice, all of which one can hear on any of the over two hundred albums he produced. If you are asking why he produced so many albums, the reason is the junk. Half of Chet's life was everything one could ask for, the other half was a heroin infused hell that led him to prison sentences in Italy and being expelled from West Germany and England.

Later in life his good looks declined, giving him a cartoon-like living ghost appearance and after a savage beating at the hands of drug dealers he was left toothless which lead him to develop a new embouchure due to his dentures. The story is debated and some even say that there was no beating to begin with, his teeth simply fell out from all the heroin. Regardless, his life was in shambles while his playing and quality of music declined from otherworldly to downright poor.

In the mid seventies he staged an impressive comeback both as a vocalist and a trumpeteer. He spent most of his time in Europe playing with such greats as Jim Hall, Phil Markowitz, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse and Stan Getz the man whom he started his career and often times had a tumultuous relationship with. He would work with Elvis Costello on "Shipbuilding", Costello stating that Baker's "The Thrill is Gone" being the inspiration for his own work. For a while it appeared as if he was back and ready to regain his title.

At about 3:00 am on May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on the street below his second-story room at the Prins Hendrik Hotel in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with serious wounds to his head. Heroin and cocaine were found in his hotel room and in his body. The death was ruled an accident and a sad finish to an absolute force in the Jazz world.

This song and this concert was one of his last and is not the best example of his work, it is a departure from my values to actually like it. The song possesses qualities I usually despise in Jazz, the biggest being STRINGS. I can't count the amount of albums these blasted things have ruined in the past. On Sinatra's albums alone the body count is far too high to speak of; and then the flutes......

But here, for this time and for this concert it works tremendously well. This song is a sad, beautiful epilogue to a war scarred life lived without apologies. Baker's voice sounds as if it is falling out of the second story window constantly, the strings and orchestra behind him provide the safety net that repeatedly keeps him from spiraling out into the abyss. At 4:24 after a piano and string interlude the trumpet reaches in and grabs your heart straight out of your body, you can forgive a man for crying to this.

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated." Few personified this line better than Chet Baker. While this final song caps an impressive, creative career it is not his best. It is not the stripped-down pure cool jazz he made in his prime and that is why it is so poignant and beautiful. When you listen to this song contemplate a wide-eyed boy from Yale, Oklahoma setting off for the West Coast with promise radiating from his pores, a meeting with Black Harry, various prisons, physical and professional ruin and yet he's still here playing with false teeth and leather skin. What is encompassed in this song is a life, for better or worse, lived, and lived without reservation nor hesitation. This song is resplendent in its sadness, I challenge one to have the courage to press play to it after a breakup. Do yourself a service and get into this man, if China White is better than this then there is no room left for heaven.

"Goin Down Slow" Duane Allman-Duane Allman: An Anthology

Like many of the greats Duane Allman died before his time in a freak accident, crushed by a lumber truck (not a peach truck as many believed, the "Eat a Peach" album by the Allmans in 1972 was not a reference to his death but merely one of Duane's quotes about Georgia and peace). Like those before him what he accomplished in his short years is much more impressive than the tragic way he died.

When you listen to Layla and hear that memorable opening riff...that was Duane Allman. Eric Clapton originally penned the song as a ballad until Duane stepped in and laid it down for the bloke. After hearing Duane provide lead guitar as a session musician Clapton was quoted as saying: "I remember hearing Wilson Pickett's 'Hey Jude' and just being astounded by the lead break at the end. ... I had to know who that was immediately — right now." I write this because as soon as one hears the name Allman their mind shifts into a world of hippies, bikers and the circus that the band has become in the last twenty years. If Duane was still around you can rest assured that this never would have happened, it would have remained true and uncompromising.

"Goin Down Slow" has been covered by everyone. Everyone. I would imagine that there is a version of Barry Manilow's floating around somewhere in the vaults. It has been done funky, fast and acoustic but like a cigar and scotch this song is never better than when it is done slow. Once Duane's version was recorded they should have ripped up the music and erased every musician's memory of how to play it. Everything else is just fluff and shit, worthless spittle thrown into the ether by mindless drones attempting to recreate a blues Pieta.

And there are so many reasons why. Could be the opening rambling piano lead-in setting up in minor the explosion of emotion and soul that could change James Brown's name to Tom. Maybe it is Duane's almost falsetto voice meandering through the terse lyrics of retrospection of a man on his deathbed. Others would say it is the brushes and slow high hat; bouncing, holding the guitar in check. But in reality it is the Les Paul that will leave you bleedin on the ground, raped by the blues.

There are two solos in this song including the outro, each of which hold their own validity and intensity, they build and destroy themselves during each interlude. The first one is very Garcia-like in the beginning, it rambles slowly, the important notes are the ones not being played. Duane had the skill to set Stevie Ray's fingers on fire but the soul and sense of timing to frame each note of this simple pentatonic scale in ways rarely exploited. The rambling ceases with some quick riffs and begins again until 3:49 when with a triple string-single fret tap and a few huge, holding, bends the intensity builds to stop. It is a massive solo and had it not been for the second, probably some of the most simply-complex blues every played.

In reality the second solo begins at 6:47 with Duane mouthing sounds "hmmmmm hmmm hmmm hmmmm hmmmmmmmmm" while bends break through in the background until 7:43 where Les Paul takes over again showing the power of six strings over two human vocal cords; the piano flutters and that slow, soft bouncer of the drums turns into an aboriginal head shrinking chant caught up in the voodoo beating out of Duane's fingers.

I think that this might be the best blues song ever written. It captures the desperation of staring the reaper in the face after a life not spent in a confessional. It is the moaning of the slaves in the field, the boss man staring you down through aviators and the cologne that is not yours on your woman's blouse. "Goin Down Slow" is everything you could ever ask for in a blues song and I'm not the only one who thinks so, who do you think made that lumber truck stop in the middle of its turn, leaving Duane dead at 25?