Lost Chet Baker recordings will be released 35 years after his death

This spring, it will have been 35 years ago that legendary American trumpeter and singer Chet Baker fell from an Amsterdam hotel window and died, but previously forgotten recordings of his work will be released on CD in April. The Dutch Jazz Archive recently found them on a shelf and dusted them off.

According to employee Frank Jochemsen, these are two recording sessions from 1979 that took place in a VARA studio for the radio program, Nine O'Clock Jazz, which aired on KRO. The producers were Edwin Rutten and Lex Lammen, who also presented the show. Some of the material was broadcast, some was not. The latter will now also be heard by the public for the first time.

Baker can be heard as part of a quartet form on both session. The first was in April 1979 with pianist Phil Markowitz, bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse and drummer Charles Rice. That November, he played with Dutch accompanists, including pianist Frans Elsen, bassist Victor Kaihatu and drummer Eric Ineke.

The recordings come directly from the original KRO tapes and have now been completely restored and remastered by Marc Broer. There will also be a booklet with the double CD, including text by Chet Baker biographer Jeroen de Valk and Edwin Rutten.

Baker became a real star for jazz lovers in the middle of the last century, when he filled the auditorium to the brim during his performances in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Kurhaus in Scheveningen, as well as other prominent theaters.

However, his drug addiction repeatedly stood in the way of his career. Baker died when he was only 58 years old.