It's interesting to think about what Miles Davis would have thought about Chet Baker. On the one hand, Miles was light years ahead of Chet in his intellectual understanding of harmony, but Miles clearly understood the impact of direct, sparse soloing, and I think he probably appreciated what Chet was doing enough to tolerate him if not accept him. There were definitely some Kenny G's in that era who would have gotten the same response from Miles as Kenny G did from Pat Metheny, but I feel like Chet is one of those players who was far from the hippest but was formidable in his taste and that's why people are still transcribing him today.

> as Kenny G did from Pat Metheny

Burn...

For those who do not get the reference:

http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm

https://youtu.be/3u6Ccdh2308?t=99 here is the recording in all it's bastard glory.

Also this brilliant solo https://youtu.be/uMiPkTqO6yQ?t=29 ...

>spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing

He's even jazzy with his insults

That post, as he explains, was a response to comments people made about his original Kenny G rant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-mjt1ypiF8

Perfect analogy.

Interesting to me because Parker’s style is so distinct from Baker.

Maybe that’s the point, he respected someone flourishing with their own sound rather than someone trying to copy them.

It’s cool to see they had such respect for him. Chet was by no means a technical master like the other famous Jazz players and not even technically that good of a singer! But he just had something else that made the rest of his skill set moot