The cover image of Chet ’ s 1956 World Pacific LP Chet Baker & Crew is worth looking at for a moment . Music criticism can ’ t be effectively done by looking at album covers , but when the image of jazz , and what a jazzman is , stands at the centre of an argument , then it ’ s often worth considering the whole package . The William Claxton cover photograph shows five men on a sailboat . Four men are sitting in the foreground in the full glare of a Pacific afternoon , though only bassist Jimmy Bond is wearing shades . It ’ s a mixedrace group , which is still somewhat unusual for the time , and profoundly unwelcome in large tracts of the disUnited States . The men are looking forward but away from the camera , three of them sharing a joke , while drummer Peter Littman leans on his side , looking thoughtful . Above them , a striking black- and white-clad diagonal , is Chet Baker . He holds on to one of the yacht ’ s sheets and angles himself out over the water , his horn pressed to his lips . Taken out of context , it might almost be a shot from a modern ballet , something choreographed by Jerome Robbins , perhaps , loosely based on the voyages of Odysseus or of Jason and the Argonauts . It has a certain mythic component .
It is , again , the young man with a horn motif . Its associations are heroic and yet the four men in the foreground seem inclined to ignore their leader , turning away as one might turn away from the show-off antics of a younger brother or slightly drunk friend . It ’ s a youthful image , full of energy and optimism , but it has its darker interpretations , too . One can imagine the blast of Chet ’ s trumpet , echoing over San Francisco bay – if that ’ s the location – rather than over Lake Pontchartrain , a cry of challenge and self-declaration , but also of pain and confusion . An art historian or cultural critic might show how carefully posed Claxton ’ s photograph was or how patiently he waited for the right moment
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