Chet Baker/Nat King Cole/Bill Evans-"Autumn Leaves"

Here's one of my ultimate trumpet heroes, Chet Baker, with a 70's rendition of "Autumn Leaves." I could do without the electric piano (Bob James), which doesn't really work in this context, but still Chet's in good form. The Paul Desmond alto sax solo is just okay.



And here's Nat King Cole, also with Autumn Leaves. This looks to be from Nat's historic TV show of the 50's. Boy, Nat didn't have great range (he didn't swing much-as a singer that is-he could swing like hell on the piano), but within that range, he was incredible.


Just another in a long series of posts on my favorite trumpeters.


UPDATE: Speaking of favorite trumpet players-the best jazz site on the Net, Jazzwax, is doing a series of interviews with the legendary Clark Terry. Clark's played with pretty much everybody, including storied stints with Basie and Ellington.



FURTHER UPDATE: Let's include Bill Evans' idiosyncratically swinging treatment of Autumn Leaves. Evans was the most influential pianist of his generation. The bass player, from the comments at Youtube, seems to be the great Eddie Gomez. This is from, I assume, the mid 60's, after Evans' revolutionary trio with bassist Scott LaFaro. Gomez' bass solo would likely be simply unplayable for most of his peers.