Chet Baker Live in Tokyo: Redeeming Scat

Here's a track that will make you not hate scat singing anymore. No: It will make you love scat singing now. Their styles were nothing alike, but Chet Baker and Louis Armstrong both sang exactly the way they played their trumpets. Call it the Unitary Theory of voice-instrumental jazz expression. Chet was an original: unmatched lyricism and he could swing his ass off, as demonstrated here. In fact, if someone ever asks you what swing is, point them to this performance from a 1987 concert in Tokyo. Notice how rhythmic patterns are juxtaposed to create tension and a sense of forward momentum. And interesting harmonic choices on Chet's part make the piano and bass perk up and make some creative choices of their own. One might say the whole thing is percolating. Perhaps counter-intuitively he was at the top of his game here, given that he was found dead just a few months later on an Amsterdam street having fallen out of a second story window while toasted on cocaine and heroin. Suicide? An accident? Who knows. But given his incredible catalog, it's safe to say that he said what he wanted to say in this life.

Plaque on the street outside the hotel where Baker fell