Enrico Rava, Paolo Fresu, Stefano Bollani, Enzo Pietropaoli & Roberto Gatto - Shades of Chet - Remastered (2025) [Hi-Res]

After a highly successful tour, Shades of Chet was released in 1999. This album is an absolute reference album for Italian jazz.

It originated from the project known as “Tribute to Chet Baker” featuring the five most famous Italian jazz musicians in the world: Enrico Rava (trumpet and flugelhorn), Paolo Fresu (trumpet and flugelhorn), Stefano Bollani (piano), Enzo Pietropaoli (double bass) and Roberto Gatto (drums).

In 1998, on the 10th anniversary of the death of Chet Baker, Enrico Rava and Paolo Fresu, conceived the project of a series of concerts dedicated to Chet Baker. The tribute to the great trumpet player, with whom three members of the tribute group played (Rava, Pietropaoli and Gatto) is immediately understood not just in the sense of tribute, but in the sense of revival: in the style of the leaders, both so close to the poetics of Baker, in the choice of songs (not just those made famous by Baker, but also those he loved , although he played them rarely), in short, in the recreation of an atmosphere, crystallized in those golden 1950s, the years of troubled youth of Baker, to which most of the songs can be traced back.

One of the album’s unique features is that the leaders of the quintet (Rava and Frescu) are recorded on two different channels (Rava the left, Fresu the right). In addition, both have done one song solo or “alone”, in a personal homage: to Chet Baker. The solo tracks are Enrico Rava on “Retrato em branco and preto” (composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim) and Paolo Fresu on “You Can Not Go Home Again” (composed by Don Sebesky).

Enrico Rava – Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Paolo Fresu – Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Stefano Bollani – Piano
Enzo Pietropaoli – Double Bass
Roberto Gatto – Drums