My partner Michael, Tim Draxl and I at tonight’s performance of Freeway –
The Chet Baker Journey
Liveguide.com.au reports
Devised and written by Bryce Hallett and Tim Draxl, the
intimate show intersperses fragments of Chet Baker's prodigious career and
self-destructive life amid his musical jewels - the "blue diamonds of
jazz" - that spoke of destiny, heartache, despair and love.
In his late teens and early 20s, Baker looked like an
angel and sang and played trumpet with astonishing assurance and ease. His
music had the power to conjure beauty out of ruin while the fragility of his
voice, at any tempo, was both heart-breaking and true.
Chet Baker held a magical sway over people's souls. From
his emergence in the 1950s - when the good-looking young man from Oklahoma
became an overnight sensation as a jazz trumpeter and singer on America's West
Coast - until his drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker's life
has become the stuff of legend.
At once sexy and elusive, Baker was dubbed "the
James Dean of Jazz" at the height of his success, his matinee idol looks
and haunting sound seducing young and old alike in the conservative '50s.
FREEWAY - THE CHET BAKER JOURNEY is replete with poignant
ballads and classic songs, including My Funny Valentine, My Buddy, Let's Get
Lost, These Foolish Things, You Don't Know What Love Is, Look For the Silver
Lining, Born to Be Blue, That Old Feeling and There Will Never Be Another You.
Jazz veteran Ray Alldridge brings his special brand of
magic to the show as musical director and pianist. He is joined by rising
trumpeter Eamon Dilworth, drummer Dave Goodman and the incomparable Dave Ellis on
bass.
Tim Draxl, who recently featured in Stephan Elliott's
romantic comedy A Few Best Men, co-starring Olivia Newton-John and Xavier
Samuel, has a natural affinity with the Prince of Cool: the boyish charm and
the sophisticated phrasing and rhythm. From the time the award-winning
Australian singer/actor first heard Chet Baker's version of the Rodgers and
Hart song, My Funny Valentine, he was hooked.
"The haunting, melancholic tone of his voice in that
song resonated with me at a time in my life when I was discovering myself not
only as an artist but who I was as a person," Draxl saïd. "When I
started listening to Chet Baker I imagined him to be this idealistic '50s
pin-up boy who was clean-cut and very together only to realise he was on heroin
and deeply tormented . . . towards the end he was virtually shunned in his
homeland and anything but the ideal posterboy."
Writer and journalist Bryce Hallett was equally intrigued
by Baker's contradictions and the lyrical beauty and world-weariness that
shines through his music. "When we set about creating FREEWAY, Tim and I
purposefully chose not to dwell unnecessarily on Chet Baker's demons. Instead
we wanted to reveal his power to enchant even when his life was at its craziest
and spinning out of control. The show partly aims to draw audiences back to the
romance and yearning of the '50s but there's no escaping the fact that Chet
Baker was the ultimate paradox."
The show is currently playing at the Sydney Opera House
until 22 July 2012.
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