Skip h wrote (re: Chet Baker)
The guy made too many albums entirely -- cash for drugs -- and probably has as many titles in print as Sun Ra. There are about five really great albums in there (the duet record with Paul Bley is shocking good), but mostly it's a guy on heroin trying to get out of the studio early.
BROKEN WING, if you can find it (it was on Inner City), is about my favorite post Russ Freeman record of his.
BTW -- when LET'S GET LOST was being filmed, Chet was in a room with jack heldon for the first time in over two decades. He asked Frank Strazzeri "What happened to Chetty's face?"
"Those are laugh lines, Jack."
"Shit -- nothing's THAT funny."
And for West Coast trumpet -- or inprovising in general -- Jack is about as great as it gets.
skip h
That last statement is a bit provocative, considering Don Cherry, and Texas transplant Bobby Bradford are LA contemporaries, but I gotta admit, despite his willingness to do showbiz schtick, Jack Sheldon has been the real deal on trumpet, going on 50 years. Personal fav: "Complete" from 'You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce". As for Chet Baker, James Gavin has a recent book out that's pretty interesting, but after a while, just like Art Pepper, you stop feeling sorry for the guy. (Interesting that Pepper, though they made a record together, despised Baker for being a snitch, where Pepper held the con's code of silence.) Sheldon & Baker make a great contrast.