cling to the purity of an avant-garde , of resolutely experimental art , aren ’ t above envy of those who win headlines and photo stories .
The standard view of Chet is that he had little “ technique ” and a very sketchy understanding of harmony . This was also said about Miles Davis , and in different contexts , about Don Cherry , too . “ Technique ” is a laden word in music-criticism . It is often used in a negative context . A young player with finely schooled technique may be judged to have little of substance to express . Sometimes the word attracts the qualifier “ mere ”. Even a quick scan of Chet ’ s recordings shows that he was in no way deficient in playing ability . Those who worked with Chet acknowledged that his inability to read accurately or to understand basic chord progressions could be a challenge , a handicap , and sometimes a downright nuisance . Pianist Russ Freeman said , “ It was frustrating . You ’ d give the guys the chords and Chet still wouldn ’ t know what you were talking about . Give him the melody and the words , though , and he was there . He knew all the old songs , sometimes old country songs that nobody else had heard about , or nobody remembered any more . I think some of that went back to his childhood . Must have .”
To say that Chet was harmonically simple-minded is a description rather than a criticism . It was the melody , first and foremost , that affected him . In years to come , he was to make one particular melody a kind of creative signature , very much in the way that John Coltrane took a popular tune and turned it into a kind of manifesto or anthem . But what Chet Baker did with “ My Funny Valentine ” was radically different to John Coltrane ’ s detouring of “ My Favourite Things ” ( the slight coincidence of titles somehow reinforces the comparison ). Whereas Trane turned the song into a wheeling , raga-like meditation , Chet spent his last couple of
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