Black Vinyl
“One day during the summer of 1972,” Frank Marshall recalls, “Jack Sheldon had an idea: ‘Just think, Chetie, if we do an album together, you’ll only have to play on half of it!’ Chet liked the idea, but was still hesitant. To make him comfortable, the two Jacks did what they did best — get great musicians together.”
In his notes devoted to the music, historian Richard S. Ginell writes, “This newly-discovered session comes from a time when Sheldon was riding high on the Merv Griffin show while Baker was struggling, out of the music for a while trying to repair his embouchure. Jazz historians say that Baker’s ‘comeback’ started in 1973, but this session predates that by about a year. Sheldon and Jack Marshall set it up as a way to ease their friend gradually onto the scene again by sharing the date and enlisting first-class help from some of L.A.’s finest resident jazzers.”