Chet (Chet Baker album)

Chet
Studio album by
Released1959
RecordedDecember 30, 1958 & January 19, 1959
StudioReeves Sound Studios, New York City
GenreJazz
Length41:48
LabelRiverside
ProducerOrrin Keepnews
Chet Baker chronology
Chet Baker Introduces Johnny Pace
(1958)
Chet
(1959)
Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe
(1959)

Chet is an album by jazz trumpeter Chet Baker first released in 1959. The record is sometimes subtitled The Lyrical Trumpet of Chet Baker. Chet features performances by Baker with alto flautist Herbie Mann, baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams, pianist Bill Evans, guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Paul Chambers, and either Connie Kay (on six tracks) or Philly Joe Jones (on four tracks) playing drums. It was recorded in December 1958 and January 1959 and released on the Riverside label.

Though Baker was by the late 1950s known as much for his singing as his trumpet playing, this album is entirely instrumental. It contains 9 standard ballads (and the Chet Baker composition "Early Morning Mood" as an additional bonus track on the CD version) played in the styles of hard bop to cool jazz. Though the album is entirely devoted to explorations of the ballad mood, it includes considerable variety.

The Chambers-Evans-Jones rhythm section was known at the time for their work with trumpeter Miles Davis.