Billboard : 03/09/1957
Score of 84

The first really new set by this group in almost two years is musically adequate, tho not quite up to par with some of his previous releases. Addition of Phil Urso on tenor is a welcome one, and he offers an effective counter line to Baker‘s trumpet. Wax is interesting and is worthy of dealer’s attention. Baker’s name still packs punch.

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Arlington Heights Herald
Paul Little : 02/28/1957

The other PCJ waxing is Chet Baker and Crew, and it stars the brilliant young trumpet artist whom Bock introduced to national jazz fans. The disc was made early last summer after Chet’s return from a European tour and finds him at his best. He is backed with a group of topnotchers like bassist Jimmy Bond, drummer Peter Littman, tenor sax Phil Urso and pianist Bobby Timmons. One of the brightest tunes on this 12-incher is Gerry Mulligan‘s Revelation, with a rich trumpet solo for Chet; other tunes include Medium Rock, Worrying the Life Out of Me, Al Cohn‘s piquant Something for Liza, and two fine numbers by Phil Uso, Halema and Lucious Lu. Some of the best trumpet playing to be found on modern LPs, enhanced by Bock’s clean, up-close sound.

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Kansas City Star
R.K.S. : 03/17/1957

Some solid modern jazz is displayed in Chet Baker and Crew, a Pacific Jazz album. Baker, the current winner of trumpet polls, plays some forthright swing and is joined in his extrovertish ways by Phil Urso, tenorman formerly with Woody Herman. Both are accomplished soloists and are backed by excellent rhythm. One number includes work on chromatic tympani, or “boo-bams,” by Bill Loughbrough. The tunes are all new and all good. The effect is uniformly good.

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Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
Robert C. Smith : 04/10/1957

Chet Baker fans who haven’t heard the young trumpeter on record since his recent European tour are the only ones who will be surprised at what is happening at the Continental this week. Chet, currently appearing here with a new, young quartet, has developed his style in a way that is sure to disappoint those whose nostalgia is attracted to the Mulligan days and the hornman’s first groups under his own name. At the same time, the development is one which will please a considerable jazz public which conceived that Chet would play better if he concentrated less on developing an intimate, sculptured tone and more on the basic jazz business of communicating excitement through development of ideas.

As one of the latter group, this reviewer found Chet’s work last night generally encouraging, despite the fact that he was putting in his first appearance on the Continental stand, having been waylaid Monday by flight cancellations and food poisoning.

No showman, Chet attacks his music from a chair and keeps announcements and exhortations to a minimum. The husky tone and preference for the horn’s lower reaches are unchanged, but Chet’s blowing now is more muscular and seems to bite sharply and with more cumulative effect than in the past. As on his latest record for Pacific Jazz, Chet Baker and Crew, there is evidence on ballads, such as last night’s My Funny Valentine, of a deeper understanding of what Miles Davis has accomplished – without undue influence – and more powerful emotional projection.

Chet confessed between sets that he was not yet entirely at ease on the up-tempos for this date, yet he loosened considerably in the next set. Ray’s Tune had some good work and the Valentine choruses were thoughtful and inventive.

The group is one with plenty of potential, although it must certainly profit from longer collaboration. It is only a few months old and the musicians are quite young. The bassman is Scott LaFaro, a promising 21-year-old. The drummer is Al Heath (Percy‘s brother), who is only 20. Pianist John Houston, possessor of a neat, funky style, rounds out the quartet.

Chet sang during this reviewer’s brief stay last night and a large part of the audience apparently liked his singing, which has always seemed to me to be chilly and lacking in swing.

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Down Beat : 04/04/1957
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

This may well be Baker‘s best LP so far. He plays throughout with more virility than often heretofore; his tone is fuller with a cheering diminution of wispiness, and, withal, he has been able to retain the lyricism that is his primary identification.

Urso‘s presence helps since Phil has an earthy, strongly swinging quality to his playing, and perhaps he is the main lifting agent in the proceedings. His own work is almost wholly derivative of Zoot-and-other-brothers but is pleasant and emotionally alive.

In the rhythm section, Timmons impresses considerably – a modernist who articulates cleanly, is thoroughly funky in a spring way, and thinks besides. Bond is also good – he cares for tone quality. Littman is a crisp, spearing, stimulating drummer. The boo-bams are only heard briefly; Loughbrough ought to be invited back so we can hear more of what these drums might contribute to a jazz combo.

Baker has chosen his tunes wisely. All are of interest. Two are by Bob Zieff, two by Urso, and the rest by Harvey Leonard, Gerry Mulligan, and Al Cohn. Zieff is writer from whom more should be heard. Dig Track 2. Chet has also revived a charming, semi-threnody by Miff Mole, Worrying, that he plays with sensitivity. The otherwise puffy notes contain one unwittingly sardonic sentence: “His work in Europe left a deep impression.” It sure did.

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Liner Notes by Woody Woodward

For the enthusiastic audiences that jammed clubs and concert halls all through 1956, this album provides that representative slice of Baker and the Quintet for which they have been asking. This is the same group heard and applauded throughout the United States. Perhaps more important, a new Chet Baker is unveiled. This is not the Chet Baker heard with the Mulligan Quartet or at Ann Arbor. He has not changed radically. That sound is still there. Only the passage of time could bring about what has happened. He speaks with authority now, and with an electric spark that was not as evident in the past.

“Chet Baker And Crew,” or the Quintet, had as its nucleus two of the members of Baker’s original “European Quartet,” Philadelphia-born bassist Jimmy Bond and drummer Peter Littman from Boston. Fresh-home from Europe in May 1956, on the first leg of his American tour, Baker hired pianist Harvey Leonard, who saw the new group through the first few weeks and produced several noteworthy arrangements. Soon afterward, pianist Bobby Timmons joined and with the addition of ex-Herdsman, Phil Urso, the quintet was complete.

The group’s remarkable extroversion can be credited to Urso. He innately possesses that rollicking, free-wheeling, rhythmic feeling that is so much a part of the Zoot Sims concept. In addition to the regular members of the group, Chet has been featuring the “chromatic tympani” of Bill Loughbrough. It was he who conceived and built the now well known “boobams.” The inclusion of Loughbrough’s work on To Mickey’s Memory here, is a touch that makes this album such a representative sampling of what “Chat Baker And Crew” have been performing before live audiences recently.

Chet Baker’s position on both the Down Beat and Metronome Polls as the nation’s “Number One Trumpeter” and his tours at home and abroad have created a flurry of interest that has snowballed. Recognition of his ability has spread. His work in Europe has left a deep impression. Since his return from abroad, the demand for his appearance in the U.S. alone has increased three-fold.

Because of Baker’s extensive personal appearances throughout the Unite States and Europe, the opportunities to record him have been virtually non-existent. The eight new performances contained on “Chet Baker And Crew” are the first to be released by the quintet that Chet has been fronting since his return to the United States in May, 1956.

These are the first recordings made by Baker in more than two years under the direct supervision of Pacific Jazz’ President, Richard Bock. Previously on-the-spot tapings of Baker’s concerts were submitted to Bock for possible release. In almost every case, poor acoustics and out of tune pianos ruined what otherwise might have been important recordings. His concert appearance at the University of Michigan in May, 1954, was an exception to this. While not the ultimate in recording techniques, the material proved satisfactory and Jazz At Ann Arbor was released later that year.

Another exception came in May, 1955. Halfway through his eight month European tour, Bake was recorded in Paris. The first sides were cut shortly before the untimely death of his pianist, Richard Twardzik. The rest were done a month later with a European rhythm section. The best of these were released by Pacific Jazz during the summer of 1956 was Chet Baker In Europe, PJ-1218. So it was that only two albums appeared in 26 months to chronicle the progress of the most talked of young trumpeter of the Fifties.

It is altogether fitting that the long awaited “Chet Baker And Crew” should be exemplary of the best in engineering and quality reproduction. All eight tracks were recorded at the Forum Theater with custom equipment and Chet Baker has been captured on record as never before.

It appears that 1957 will be an especially good year for Chet Baker and his fans too. Recognizing the strenuous demand on the acclaimed musician’s time, Bock has spent the latter part of 1956 recording Baker in every conceivable combination. Quartets, quintets, octets and a big band have been readied for 1957 release, using the vast amount of material Baker amassed during his absence from records.

In the recording studios and on the stage of the Forum Theater, Baker sings and plays surrounded by top jazz artists. Enough material has been recorded to produce another vocal album. In “Chet Baker And Crew,” as in the to-be-released albums, Chet Baker is no longer the unsure youngster with the downthrust horn. There is something else too… that indefinable elusive quality that separates the man from the boy.