CHET BAKER & THE DICK BOCK SCAM –

Pré-digital practice of cutting and reshuffling made it hard to distinguish what is what. 

Anyway you look at it, you have to call it a scam. I remember finding Chuck Berry’s On Stage in my dad’s collection, thinking it was a live recording but finding out later applause and audience roar was added to studio recordings. Shame on you, oh sweet and holy Leonard and Phil Chess!

At least nobody tinkered with the actual recordings. Nowadays, splitting and cutting and overdubbing is not unusual, raising discussion, certainly in jazz and the art of improvisation, whether it takes off the edge of spontaneity. Few, I would think, blame Monk and Orrin Keepnews for editing the complex Brilliant Corners from multiple takes. Or would they? As long as the story is fulfilling.

Sometimes though, people just push it too far. What about Chet Baker’s Pretty / Groovy on World Pacific from 1958? I didn’t know about this story until the serious collector Rudolf “Fiftiesjazz” posted the album on Instagram. Dig this. Owner Richard Bock really outdid himself on this one.

Fiftiesjazz: “The liner notes could not be more vague to hide the truth. An album presented as yet another Chet Baker Quartet/Quintet album is just old stuff doctored by chief alchemist Richard Bock.”

“Chet’s first vocal album, 25cm Pacific Jazz LP 11, was dismembered and the vocals by Chet were filtered out. Instead, ‘guest artists’ Bill Perkins and Jimmy Giuffre were filling in the free space. Ingenious! Another ploy was to use already issued tracks from LP 3 and some unissued alternates. One track with a guitar dubbed in dates from December 9, 1957, the last recording Chet made for Pacific Jazz. So the album spans a period from 1953 to 1957.” 

“Richard repeated the scam in the sixties by dubbing in Joe Pass on guitar instead of Perkins and Giuffre and issuing it as a Chet Baker/Joe Pass collaboration. That album was available in Japan.” 

Bock, who gave us tons of great music and deserves the homage Bock To Bock from Wes Montgomery, seriously crossed a red line here!

What’s your ‘favorite’ scam?