Chet, you were a breathtaking beauty and that beauty spilled over in your playing, in that unique blend of intelligence, logic and feeling. You were a master at the art of understatement, you always hit that delicate balance between silence and carefully chosen notes. The cool, restrained, mournful lyricism of your early years finally gave way to an uncompromising passion, to complete surrender - there was no need to hold back anymore. You managed to transcend the mess and the chaos of your life - all the tension and the suffering and the sadness that was so clearly written on your face - and transform it into sheer beauty and poetry.
You once said that playing was the one thing they couldn't take away from you (and you were almost wrong there) that you were usually depressed, quiet and melancholic - but it all seemed to change when you played. I do hope that what you said was true, that you found redemption in the softly-blown lines of your horn and the whispered tenderness of your voice. I know I did.
[(c) 2000. Alexandra de Vos]
