Weekend Extra: Chet Baker Found

You Tube may have removed all of its Chet Baker videos, but it turns out that there is still Baker to be seen and heard on the web. Two days late, we are able to link you, after all, to a Japanese site that has Chet singing and playing "My Funny Valentine" in a superior performance from late in his career. Only the bassist, Heyn Ven De Geyn, is identified. The pianist is likely to be Harold Danko. If you know who the drummer is, please send an e-mail message.

Comment

Ty Newcomb writes:

LINE-UP:

Chet Baker - trumpet, vocal.
Harold Danko - piano
Hein van de Gein - bass
John Engels - drums

(I thought that solo sounded familiar. It is available on a CD, the brilliant Chet Baker In Tokyo. Recorded in 1987, the year before he died, his playing on that concert is proof that even toward the end of his life, which was a study in self abuse, Baker was never a burnt-out case musically. -- DR)