24/01/2009

Let's Get Lost















I saw Let’s Get Lost - documentary about famous jazz trumpet player and vocalist Chet Baker- last Summer when it returned to the cinemas after twenty years. I’m coming back to this because I’m listening to Baker’s last studio album, soundtrack for this film.
One of the things that make Let’s Get Lost so much better than any other biographical documents, is amazing photography as it was filmed by a fashion photographer Bruce Weber. It has the same quality as William Claxton’s photographs of Chet that are still the images that we see in our mind whenever we think of this cult musician.
Filmed in black and white with varied interviews and archive footage this picture helps us build a full picture of an artist whose life had several sides. The film’s non-linear path, and the raw honesty of his family and friends, ex-wives and ex-lovers, contemporaries and Baker himself, also give it a level of depth and authenticity that you can truly connect with.
Despite his tragic life and even more tragic death he left with us his music that is here to stay.
The most moving scene of the film is when Chet sings Elvis Costello’s song Almost Blue, all wrinkled and destroyed by heroin addiction but still performing with the same intensity and emotion.
This film is available on DVD and I truly recommend it, also for people that aren’t necessarily fans of jazz.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to see the respect to CHET! Check my tribute out! Can you dig it?

www.the-jazz-cat.com

Malwina Gruszecka said...

Of course!
Believe me, I do take music (in general) seriously! 
Impressive web site!