Aside from a new album by a favourite musician, few things hold so much promise as the release of a previously unavailable recording—and if it comes up to expectations, rather than being a barrel-scraping exercise, one has lucked out. Live In Paris: The Radio France Recordings 1983 -1984 hits the sweet spot. Available as a 3 x LP box set from April 23, 2022, which is Record Store Day, and a week later as a 2 x CD box, these live performances by one of Chet Baker's hottest late-period groups have only previously been accessible on application to France's L'Institut National De L'Audiovisuel (INA), which has archived them on behalf of Office De Radiodiffusion-Television Francaise (ORTF). That hardly qualifies as public domain, so the Elemental label's release is effectively the first one.

The discs document two performances in Paris, the first an open-air gig in June 1983 at L'Esplanade De La Defense, the second a club appearance at Le Petit Opportun in February 1984. Baker was in the final stage of his career (he passed in 1988) and was going out in a blaze of heroin and cocaine use, his drugs of choice since the late 1950s. When the stars and the connections were in alignment, magic ensued. When they were in opposition, chaos ruled. In an interview for Matthew Ruddick's assiduously researched Funny Valentine: The Story Of Chet Baker (Melrose, 2012), bassist