0011 Chet Baker Sings And Plays: A Homage

That’s the word we use for the abrupt suddenness of the old rubber-squeezed car horn on the outside, by the driving seat of the old battered Ford and unforgettably for the anguished heart, the bugle on the battlefield as stretcher-bearers move in gathering dusk, the final drawn-out, liquid, haunting pa-a-a-rp.... dies away to pregnant, bloody silence; death after life; life after death. and then the sound of the civilian trumpet in the days of the uneasy, hopeful postwar peace hitting our eardrums, calling to attention, stirring our blood or perversely, making the silence in between the notes more silent, more laid back, more significant, as if to say, how quickly rest may follow action, action rest, hot, cool; cool, hot; So trumpet can be voice; voice, trumpet; behind them, heart and mind, and mood and mode sing, even whisper, you’re unforgettable, that’s what you are; there will never be another you; that’s how it is; if you don’t know what love is, I’ll play it to you; maybe sing.. his husky, boyish voice, a hint of Oklahoma on Pacific shores, sang – sings – the standards tenderly as if they are the given texts for all mankind of this new day of love; they apply to him, and you; and everyone; so he makes no pretence he thought them first; . yet, in the long pauses in his singing, he's thinking them into now. then as the line’s still finishing, his trumpet turns the words to comment, as the cage is opened, the bird flies out and up, released to joy in boundless air and space; as if it were outside the soundproofed recording studio but recognised the song; and knew itself as free, soaring high in sad songs or in glad songs, knowing them the same at heart, as a trumpet soars its notes out over the Pacific air as gulls call to the waves, singing liberty, equality, fraternity - I’m telling you what love is