Mike Melillo, Chet Baker

Symphonically sets the trumpet of Chet Baker against a full orchestra in five long ballads, in arrangements written and conducted by the pianist Mike Melillo. It was recorded in the summer of 1985 at Arena Gigli in Porto Recanati, on the Adriatic coast, under the auspices of the Province of Macerata, with the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana, and Soul Note released it in 1986. Melillo, an American from Newark who had settled in Italy, is at the piano with a jazz rhythm section inside the orchestra.

The date was 8 July 1985. Bassist Massimo Moriconi and drummer Giampaolo Ascolese complete the quartet at the centre, Giancarlo Barigozzi engineered, and the tapes were mixed in Milan at his studio on 8 April 1986 for producer Giovanni Bonandrini. Mike Hennessey wrote the liner notes. The pieces are standards from the American songbook, stretched well beyond their usual length: Laura runs almost thirteen minutes and This Thing By Starlight twelve. Yesterdays and My Foolish Heart follow at more than eight minutes each, and Dancing In The Dark closes the set in five.

This CD is SNGG004-2 in the Golden Gems series of CAM Jazz, issued on Soul Note in November 2016 with remastered audio in a card sleeve with the original colour booklet. The album first came out in 1986 as SN 1134.