Chet Baker sings... [by Steven Rea]

Earlier this week I was writing up my review of Born to Be Blue, Robert Budreau's appropriately jazzy tribute to the great trumpeter and singer Chet Baker -- with Ethan Hawke in the lead as the cool cat West Coast horn player with the tragic end story and the knocked-out teeth. It's a very good film, evoking 1950s/1960s L.A. and New York, and that's Hawke singing his way through a couple of the standards ("My Funny Valentine," "I've Never Been In Love Before") that Baker made his own.

So, by way of due diligence, and as an excuse to put the headphones on at work and take myself somewhere else, I listened to one of the best of Baker's collection of vocals: (Chet Baker Sings) It Could Happen to You. The LP came out in 1958 on Riverside, and Baker's song choice and silky readings are sublime. There's Rodgers and Hart here ("Do It the Hard Way," "Dancing On the Ceiling"), and the Gershwin boys ("How Long Has This Been Going On?") but maybe my favorite of the bunch is the Matt Dennis/Tom Adair woebegone ballad, "Everything Happens to Me." How's this for poetry:

Everything Happens to Me

I make a date for golf, and you can bet your life it rains.
I try to give a party, and the guy upstairs complains.
I guess I'll go through life, just catching colds and missing trains.
Everything happens to me.

I never miss a thing. I've had the measles and the mumps.
And every time I play an ace, my partner always trumps.
I guess I'm just a fool, who never looks before he jumps.
Everything happens to me.

At first, my heart thought you could break this jinx for me.
That love would turn the trick to end despair.
But now I just can't fool this head that thinks for me.
I've mortgaged all my castles in the air.

I've telegraphed and phoned and sent an air mail special too.
Your answer was goodbye and there was even postage due.
I fell in love just once, and then it had to be with you.
Everything happens to me.

I love that line: "I've mortgaged all my castles in the air!" 

Sinatra recorded "Everything Happens to Me," too, and it's none too shabby. But I'll take Chetty. Give a listen...

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Comments

[The Best American Poetry]

Sinatra is great but when I'm in a melancholy mood I'll take Chet over Frank. Stacey