Chet Is Back (Gate)

UK reissue. Chet Baker made almost as many headlines for his drug habit as he did for his musical abilities, being sentenced to several spells in prison for various drug charges. In the summer of 1960 he was imprisoned for eighteen months in Italy, but on his release found the local RCA label was willing to get him back into a studio as quickly as possible! Assembling a number of up and coming musicians from Europe, including Amadeo Tommasi (piano), Rene Thomas (guitar), Benoit Quersin (bass), Daniel Humair (drums) and Bobby Jaspar (tenor saxophone and flute), CHET IS BACK was a more Bop orientated album than his earlier efforts. It has been suggested that Chet's drug addiction and with it the almost constant need for cash led him to accepting many recording offers that he might otherwise have been better off avoiding. Certainly, the sheer abundance of material he recorded is of varying quality, as one might expect. Fortunately, CHET IS BACK is one of the better albums he recorded, fully justifying the moniker 'overlooked Baker classic' it has been dubbed.