Chet Baker – Five From ’65: The Quintet Summer Sessions – Five Vinyl Record Box Set

Description

Chet Baker – Five From ’65: The Quintet Summer Sessions – Five Vinyl Record Box Set

Five From ’65: The Quintet Summer Sessions brings together five albums Chet Baker recorded in New York during a single week in August 1965: Groovin’, Smokin’, Boppin’, Cool Burnin’, and Comin’ On. The sessions capture a transitional Baker, back in the United States after years in Europe and working with a harder, more modern rhythm section than the West Coast settings most closely associated with his 1950s reputation. Heard as a complete body of work, the recordings are not an isolated curiosity. They document a concentrated attempt to reestablish Baker inside the fast-changing language of mid-1960s jazz.

The quintet is unusually strong. Tenor saxophonist George Coleman brings the muscular authority and harmonic command heard in his work with Miles Davis and other leading modern groups. Pianist Kirk Lightsey supplies crisp voicings and flexible rhythmic ideas, while bassist Herman Wright and drummer Roy Brooks give the sessions a firm, responsive foundation. Baker’s trumpet remains lyrical, but the surrounding musicians do not treat lyricism as fragility. Their alert, forceful playing encourages him to sharpen his articulation and take longer, more searching routes through the tunes.

Each LP has its own balance of originals and standards. Familiar pieces such as “Cherokee,” “Fine and Dandy,” “Have You Met Miss Jones,” “I Waited for You,” and “Stairway to the Stars” provide clear reference points, revealing how the group handles tempo, space, and harmonic pressure. Less familiar titles including “Madison Avenue,” “Grade ‘A’ Gravy,” “Bud’s Blues,” “Cut Plug,” and “Chabootie” show the session’s working-band character. The repetition of personnel across five programs lets listeners hear the musicians settle into one another’s timing rather than resetting for a single album date.

The box also corrects the way these recordings have often been treated as marginal late material. In 1965 Baker was neither the untouched young icon of his Pacific Jazz years nor the weathered European figure of later decades. His sound carried experience, interruption, and renewed purpose. The music can be cool without being passive and hard-driving without forcing Baker to imitate a more aggressive trumpeter. That tension makes the set valuable: it fills a real biographical and musical space between the familiar chapters of his career.

The complete track sequence also restores the individual pacing of the five original LP programs. Up-tempo blowing pieces are balanced by standards and more spacious selections, giving Baker’s lyricism room to reappear between the harder ensemble passages. Listening across all thirty-two performances reveals small changes in confidence, attack, and interaction that a highlights disc would miss. Coleman and Lightsey do not merely accompany Baker; they supply alternative centers of gravity, and the rhythm section continually adjusts the amount of pressure beneath each soloist.

New Land produced this five-LP edition with access to the original analog mono tapes. Kevin Gray remastered and cut the records AAA, preserving an all-analog path for the vinyl mastering. The box includes a substantial illustrated book built around an essay by Grammy-nominated writer James Gavin, with rare photographs, ephemera, and interviews connected to the sessions. UPC 5051083210348 identifies the complete five-record box rather than a single LP. With all thirty-two tracks kept in album-length groups, the set presents the week as an extended document of reinvention instead of a compressed sampler. The book supplies historical evidence that is difficult to recover from the music alone today.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Track Listing

LP 1
1-1. Madison Avenue
1-2. Lonely Star
1-3. We, Too
1-4. Tan Gaugin
1-5. Cherokee
1-6. Bevan Beeps
LP 2
2-1. Grade “A” Gravy
2-2. Serenity
2-3. Fine and Dandy
2-4. Have You Met Miss Jones
2-5. Rearin’ Back
2-6. So Easy
LP 3
3-1. Go-Go
3-2. Lament for the Living
3-3. Pot Luck
3-4. Bud’s Blues
3-5. Romas
3-6. On a Misty Night
LP 4
4-1. Hurry
4-2. I Waited for You
4-3. 490
4-4. Cut Plug
4-5. Boudoir
4-6. Etude in Three
4-7. Sleeping Susan
LP 5
5-1. Comin’ On
5-2. Stairway to the Stars
5-3. No Fair Lady
5-4. When You’re Gone
5-5. Choose Now
5-6. Chabootie
5-7. Carpsie’s Groove