Chet Baker | |
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.jpg) Baker in 1983 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Chesney Henry Baker Jr. |
| Born | (1929-12-23)December 23, 1929 Yale, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Died | May 13, 1988(1988-05-13) (aged 58) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
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| Years active | 1949–1988[1] |
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Chesney Henry "Chet"Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an Americanjazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations incool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool".[2]
Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals:Chet Baker Sings (1954) andIt Could Happen to You (1958). Jazz historianDave Gelly described the promise of Baker's early career as "James Dean,Sinatra, andBix, rolled into one".[3] His well-publicizeddrug habit also drove his notoriety and fame. Baker was in and out of jail frequently before enjoying a career resurgence in the late 1970s and 1980s.[4]
Baker was born December 23, 1929, inYale, Oklahoma, and raised in a musical household.[5]: 169 His father, Chesney Baker Sr., was a professionalWestern swing guitarist, and his mother, Vera Moser, was a pianist who worked in a perfume factory. His maternal grandmother was Norwegian.[6]: 10 Baker said that owing to theGreat Depression, his father, though talented, had to quit as a musician and take a regular job. In 1940, when Baker was 10, his family relocated toGlendale, California.[7]
Baker began his musical career singing in a church choir. His father, a fan ofJack Teagarden, gave him a trombone, before switching to the trumpet at the age of 13 when the trombone proved to be too large for him.[8] His mother said that he had begun to memorize tunes on the radio before he was given an instrument.[9] After "falling in love" with the trumpet, he improved noticeably in two weeks. Peers called Baker a natural musician to whom playing came effortlessly.[9]
Baker received some musical education atGlendale High School, but he left school at the age of 16 in 1946 to join theUnited States Army. He was assigned toBerlin, Germany, where he joined the298th Army Band.[5]: 170 While stationed in Berlin, he became acquainted with modern jazz by listening toV-Discs ofDizzy Gillespie andStan Kenton.[8] After leaving the Army in 1948, he studied music theory and harmony atEl Camino College inLos Angeles.[10] He dropped out during his second year to re-enlist. He became a member of theSixth Army Band at thePresidio inSan Francisco,[10] spending time in clubs such asBop City and theBlack Hawk.[11] He was discharged from the Army in 1951 and proceeded to pursue a career in music.[12]
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Baker performed withVido Musso andStan Getz before being chosen byCharlie Parker for a series of West Coast engagements.[13]
In 1952, Baker joined theGerry Mulligan Quartet and attracted considerable attention. Rather than playing identical melody lines in unison like Parker and Gillespie, Baker and Mulligan complemented each other with counterpoint and anticipating what the other would play next. "My Funny Valentine," with a solo by Baker, became a hit and was associated with Baker for the rest of his career.[14] With the quartet, Baker was a regular performer at Los Angeles jazz clubs such asThe Haig and theTiffany Club.[9]
Baker formed a quartet with a rotation that included pianistRuss Freeman, bassistsBob Whitlock,Carson Smith,Joe Mondragon, andJimmy Bond, and drummersLarry Bunker, Bob Neel, andShelly Manne.
Baker's quartet released popular albums between 1953 and 1956. Baker won reader's polls atMetronome andDownBeat magazines, beating trumpetersMiles Davis andClifford Brown. In 1954, readers named Baker the top jazz vocalist. In 1954,Pacific Jazz Records releasedChet Baker Sings, an album that both increased his visibility and drew criticism. Nevertheless, Baker continued to sing throughout the rest of his career.
Baker, with his youthful, chiseled looks oft-photographed byWilliam Claxton, and hiscool demeanor that evoked breezy Californiaplayboy living, became somewhat of ateen idol on top of being a respected, up-and-coming jazz musician.[9] Hollywood studios saw movie star potential in Baker, and he made his acting debut in the filmHell's Horizon in the fall of 1955. Baker declined a studio contract, preferring life on the road as a musician.
Over the next few years, he led his own combos, including a 1955 quintet withFrancy Boland where Baker combined trumpet-playing and singing. In September 1955, he left for Europe for the first time, completing an eight-month tour and recording for theBarclay label that October. Some of these sessions were released in the United States asChet Baker in Europe.[15] While there, he also recorded a rare accompaniment for another vocalist:Caterina Valente playing guitar and singing "I'll Remember April" and "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye".[16]
One month into the tour, pianistDick Twardzik died of a heroin overdose. Despite this, Baker continued the tour, employing local pianists.[16]
Returning to Los Angeles post-tour, Baker returned to recording for Pacific Jazz. His output included three collaborations withArt Pepper, includingPlayboys, and thesoundtrack toThe James Dean Story. Baker moved toNew York City, where he collaborated again with Gerry Mulligan for the 1957 releaseReunion with Chet Baker. In 1958, Baker rejoined with Stan Getz forStan Meets Chet. That same year, he also releasedIt Could Happen to You, similar toChet Baker Sings, notable for featuring hisscat singing skills in lieu of trumpet-playing. His last significant release before returning to Europe wasChet, released byRiverside Records, featuring an all-star personnel that included pianistBill Evans, bassistPaul Chambers, and drummerPhilly Joe Jones, all associated with leading jazz trumpeter Miles Davis.
Soon after signing on with Riverside Records, Baker was arrested twice; the first arrest involved a stay at a Lexington hospital, then imprisonment atRikers Island for four months on drug charges. Baker said he began usingheroin in 1957.[5]: 191 However, author Jeroen de Valk and pianist Russ Freeman said that Baker started heroin in the early 1950s. Freeman was Baker's musical director after Baker left the Mulligan quartet. Sometimes Baker pawned his instruments to buy drugs.[citation needed]
In late 1959, Baker returned to Europe, recording in Italy what became known as the Milano sessions with arranger and conductorEzio Leoni (Len Mercer) and his orchestra. Baker appeared as himself in themusicarello film,Howlers in the Dock.Tabloids reviled Baker for his drug habit and reckless womanizing and infidelity.[6]: 169–170 In August 1960, he was imprisoned inLucca for importing narcotics, forging prescriptions, and drug abuse.[5]: 191 [17] This forced Leoni to communicate through the prison warden to coordinate arrangements with Baker as they prepared for recording.[18]
Baker spent nearly a year and a half in jail, and was later arrested inWest Germany and expelled to Switzerland, then France, later moving to England in August 1962. He appeared as himself in the filmStolen Hours, which was released in 1963. He was deported from England to France, because of a drug offense, in March 1963. He lived in Paris and performed there and in Spain over the next year, but after being arrested again, he was deported to the U.S. from Germany.[1] He settled inMilpitas, California, performing inSan Francisco andSan Jose between jail terms for prescription fraud.[citation needed]
Baker's first release in 1962, after his Italian prison sentence, wasChet Is Back! forRCA, balancing ballads with energetic bop. That same year, Baker collaborated withEnnio Morricone in Rome for a series oforchestral pop records, recording four original songs that he had composed during his prison sentence: "Chetty's Lullaby", "So che ti perderò", "Motivo su raggio di luna", and "Il mio domani".[17]
Baker returned to New York City in 1964.[19] Throughout most of the 1960s, Baker playedflugelhorn, and recorded music that could be classified asWest Coast jazz.[1] In 1964, he releasedThe Most Important Jazz Album of 1964/65 onColpix Records, and in 1965 he releasedBaby Breeze onLimelight. He then released five albums withPrestige, recorded in one week.[20]
Baker fell behind on jazz's latest innovations.[8]: 96 At the end of 1965, he returned to the Pacific label, recording six themed albums whose content veered from straight jazz towards uninspired, instrumental covers of contemporarypop songs arranged byBud Shank. Baker himself was unhappy with the records, describing them as "simply a job to pay the rent." By this time, he had a wife and three children to support.[8]: 100–101
The following summer, already having reached a low point in his career, Baker was beaten up, probably while attempting to buy drugs,[21] after performing atThe Trident inSausalito. In the filmLet's Get Lost, Baker said an acquaintance attempted to rob him, but backed off, only to return the next night with a group of men who chased him. He entered a car and was surrounded. Instead of rescuing him, the people inside the car pushed him back out onto the street, where the chase continued. He received cuts and several of his teeth were knocked out. This incident has been often misdated or otherwise said to be exaggerated partly because of his own unreliable testimony on the matter.[1][9]
Regardless, the 1966 incident did lead to his teeth eventually deteriorating. By late 1968 or early 1969, he neededdentures.[8] This ruined hisembouchure, and he struggled to relearn how to play the trumpet and flugelhorn.
Baker claims that, for three years, he worked at a gas station until concluding that he had to find a way back to music and retrain his embouchure.[22] Biographer Jeroen de Valk notes that Baker was still musically active after 1966, performing and occasionally recording. In April 1968, he provided flugelhorn for Bud Shank'sMagical Mystery album.[8] In 1969, he releasedAlbert's House, which features 11 compositions bySteve Allen, who organized the recording date to help Baker restart his career. In 1970, Baker releasedBlood, Chet and Tears.
After these unsuccessful releases, Baker withdrew from the music business. He did not release another album for 4 years, and from around 1968 to 1973, stopped performing in public.[8] Moving back with his family to his mother's house in San Jose and depending on welfare, Baker was arrested for forging heroin prescriptions. The judge released him on the condition that he remained onmethadone for the next seven years.[8]
In 1973, Baker decided to attempt a comeback. Returning to thestraight-ahead jazz that began his career, he drove to New York to perform again.[8] In 1974, theIndia Navigation label releaseda live album of performances with saxophonistLee Konitz.She Was Too Good to Me, released byCTI Records that same year, is considered a comeback album. His last release of 1974 was anotherlive album recorded at Carnegie Hall, which was his final collaboration with Gerry Mulligan.
From that time, work in both the U.S. and Europe was inconsistent. In 1977, Baker recordedOnce Upon a Summertime andYou Can't Go Home Again. That November, he returned to Europe to tour for the rest of that year. Being met with renewed interest in France, Italy, Germany, and Denmark, Baker decided to stay.[8] He worked almost exclusively in Europe, only returning to the U.S. about once a year to attend some performances.[23]
From that point on, Baker recorded a prolific amount of material. In 1979, Baker made 11 records; the following year, he made 10. They were released by small jazz labels such asCircle,SteepleChase, and Sandra.
During the early 1980s, Baker began to associate himself with musicians with whom he meshed well, such as guitaristPhilip Catherine, bassistNiels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and pianistMichel Graillier.
Later in his career, Baker preferred to play in ensembles without drums.[8][24] He detested playing at loud venues to inattentive audiences. At gigs in lively French and American clubs, he would sometimes wait for over half an hour for noise to die down before beginning to perform, and he would pause his performance if the audience made a racket.[9][25]: 102
In 1983, British singerElvis Costello, a longtime fan of Baker, hired the trumpeter to play a solo on his song "Shipbuilding" for the albumPunch the Clock. The song exposed Baker's music to a new audience. Later, Baker often featured Costello's song "Almost Blue" (in turn inspired by Baker's version of "The Thrill Is Gone") in his concert sets.
In 1985, five years after meeting Brazilian pianist/composerRique Pantoja in a club in Paris, Baker was invited by Pantoja to perform at theFree Jazz Festival inRio de Janeiro. While inBrazil, Baker recorded trumpet and vocals for their duet albumRique Pantoja & Chet Baker.[26][27]
In 1986,Chet Baker: Live at Ronnie Scott's London presented Baker in an intimate stage performance filmed with Elvis Costello andVan Morrison as he performed a set of standards and classics, including "Just Friends", "My Ideal", and "Shifting Down". Augmenting the music, Baker spoke one-on-one with friend and colleague Costello about his childhood, career, and struggle with drugs.
Baker recorded the live albumChet Baker in Tokyo with his quartet featuring pianistHarold Danko, bassistHein Van de Geyn, and drummerJohn Engels [nl]. Released eleven months before his death,John Vinocur named it "a glorious moment in Chet Baker's twilight."[28]
In the winter of 1986, at a club in New York City, Baker met fashion photographerBruce Weber.[29] Weber convinced him to do a photo shoot for what was originally going to be only a three-minute film.[30] When Baker started opening up to Weber, Weber convinced him to work on a longer film about his life.[31] Filming began in January 1987. The finished film,Let's Get Lost, is a highly acclaimed and stylizeddocumentary that explores Baker's talent and charm, the glamour of his youth now withered into a derelict state, and his turbulent, sensational romantic and family life. It was released in September 1988, four months after his death that May. Two accompanying soundtrack albums, one compiling highlights from the height of his fame and one featuring new material that Baker recorded during the filming of the documentary, were released in 1989.
Early on May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on the street below his room in Hotel Prins Hendrik,Amsterdam, with serious wounds to his head, apparently having fallen from the second-story window.[33]Heroin andcocaine were found in his room and in his body. No evidence of a struggle was found, and the death was ruled an accident.[34] According to another account, he inadvertently locked himself out of his room and fell while attempting to cross from the balcony of the vacant room adjacent to his own.[35] A plaque was placed outside the hotel in his memory.[36]
Baker is buried at theInglewood Park Cemetery inInglewood, California,[37] next to his father.
Chet Baker's personal life was tumultuous, partly owing to a decades-long drug addiction which began in the 1950s and a nomadic lifestyle caused by touring. In 1980, he referred to his life as "1/3 in a car, 1/3 sleeping, and 1/3 playing music."[22]
His first short-lived marriage was to Charlaine Souder in 1950.[6]: 43–44 In 1954, despite remaining married to Charlaine, he publicly dated French jazz club-goer Lili Cukier (later known as actressLiliane Rovère) for 2 years, introducing her to others as his wife.[38][6]: 102 A photo of the couple taken byWilliam Claxton appears as part of a collage on the cover ofChet Baker Sings and Plays.
Baker's relationship with Lili ended when he informed her of his new marriage to Halema Alli.[6]: 128 He married the 20-year-old Halema, 7 years his junior, in May 1956, one month after they met.[6]: 132 The couple posed for a photograph by William Claxton, where Halema appears in a white dress and rests her head on Baker's knee. They had a son, Chesney Aftab Baker, to whom Baker dedicated his composition, "Chetty's Lullaby."[17] Baker was an irresponsible and distant father.[39]
In a scandal heavily scrutinized by Italiantabloids, Halema was sent to prison for smugglingjetrium from Germany to Italy for her husband, though she claimed that she was unaware that she was breaking the law. To his wife's humiliation, by the time of the trial, Baker had already started publicly dating Carol Jackson, a showgirl fromSurrey. After being detained for six months,[8]: 86 Halema returned toInglewood, and their marriage essentially ended, though they remained legally married for several years because tracking down Baker for divorce proceedings was too difficult.[6]: 169–171; 178
In 1962, Carol Jackson gave birth to a son, Dean. Two years later in 1964, Baker returned to the United States, and Halema was able to serve Baker divorce papers.[6]: 206 Baker married Carol Jackson in 1964, and they had two more children, Paul in 1965 and Melissa ("Missy") in 1966.[40][9][41][8]: x Despite his inconsistency in remaining in his family's life, and his infidelity, Carol and Chet never divorced.[9]
In 1970, Baker met jazz drummer Diane Vavra. The two started an on-again off-again relationship that lasted until the end of his life. Beginning in the 1980s, she acted as his steady companion while touring Europe.[8]: 117 She took care of his personal needs and assisted him with his career.[23] TheLibrary of Congress holds the correspondence of Chet and Diane.[42] Chet dedicated his 1985 albumDiane to Vavra, covering the familiarjazz standard "Diane." For a time, Vavra took refuge at awomen's shelter due to Baker's behavior.[9]
In 1973, Baker began a relationship withRuth Young, a jazz singer. She accompanied him on his 1975 tour in Europe, and he lived with her while stopping in New York.[8]: 116–117 They dated, with interruptions, for about a decade.[43][8]: 119 Together, they recorded two duets, "Autumn Leaves" and "Whatever Possessed Me," for the 1977 albumThe Incredible Chet Baker Plays and Sings.
Owing to his time in Italy, Baker was fluent in Italian.[22][44]
Baker enjoyed driving and sports cars.[45][8]: 132 In 1971, 1972, and 1975, Baker was arrested fordrunk driving.[8]: 108
During the late 1960s and 1970s, Baker attempted to begin writing hismemoirs. According to his wife Carol, he lost the draft while traveling on tour.[8]: 108 In 1997, Carol Baker published and wrote an introduction to his "lost memoirs," taped around 1978, under the titleAs Though I Had Wings.[1][46] What writing exists is scant and idiosyncratic, and focuses mainly on his time in the army and his drug use.
Some of Baker's notable compositions include "Chetty's Lullaby", "Freeway", "Early Morning Mood", "Two a Day", "So che ti perderò" ("I Know I Will Lose You"), "Il mio domani" ("My Tomorrow"), "Motivo su raggio di luna" ("Contemplate on a Moonbeam"), "The Route", "Skidaddlin'", "New Morning Blues" (withDuke Jordan), "Blue Gilles", "Dessert", "Anticipated Blues", "Blues for a Reason",[47] "We Know It's Love", and "Looking Good Tonight".
Angel, devil or both, Chet Baker is the stuff of jazz legend. By his mid-20s, the Oklahoma country boy was famous, leaping to stardom in 1953 with saxophonist Gerry Mulligan’s trend-setting West Coast quartet and winning polls on trumpet. His reputation was no mere publicity bubble. After playing with Baker in his pre-Mulligan days, bebop pioneer Charlie Parker told his trumpet protégé Miles Davis, ‘There’s a little white cat out on the coast who’s going to eat you up.’
Baker was photographed byWilliam Claxton for his bookYoung Chet: The Young Chet Baker. An Academy Award-nominated 1988 documentary about Baker,Let's Get Lost, portrays him as a cultural icon of the 1950s while juxtaposing this with his later image as a drug addict. The film, directed by fashion photographerBruce Weber, was shot in black-and-white, and includes a series of interviews with friends, family (including his three children by third wife Carol Baker), musical associates, and female friends, interspersed with footage from Baker's earlier life, and interviews with Baker in his last years. InChet Baker, His Life and Music, author Jeroen de Valk and others criticize the film for presenting Baker as a "washed-up" musician in his later years. The film was shot during the first half of 1987, the year before Baker's death, ending in Cannes in May 1987, just prior to Baker's June 14, 1987, Tokyo concert, released onChet Baker in Tokyo. It premiered four months after Baker's death.[citation needed]
Time after Time: The Chet Baker Project, written by playwright James O'Reilly, toured Canada in 2001.[49]
Jeroen de Valk has written a biography of Baker;Chet Baker: His Life and Music is the English translation.[50] Other biographies of him include James Gavin'sDeep in a Dream—The Long Night of Chet Baker, and Matthew Ruddick'sFunny Valentine. Baker's "lost memoirs" are available in the bookAs Though I Had Wings, which includes an introduction by Carol Baker.[1]
The 1960 filmAll the Fine Young Cannibals, starringRobert Wagner as a jazz trumpeter named Chad Bixby, was loosely inspired by Baker.[citation needed]
The 1999 film version ofThe Talented Mr. Ripley,Matt Damon plays a master of mimicry who imitates Baker's recording of "My Funny Valentine" fromChet Baker Sings.[citation needed]
Chet Baker is portrayed byEthan Hawke in the 2015 filmBorn to Be Blue. It is a reimagining of Baker's career in the late 1960s, when he is famous for both his music and his addiction, and he takes part in a movie about his life to boost his career.[51]Steve Wall plays Baker in the 2018 filmMy Foolish Heart.
American singer/songwriterDavid Wilcox included the tender biographical portraitChet Baker's Unsung Swan Song on his 1991 albumHome Again.[52] VocalistLuciana Souza recordedThe Book of Chet in 2012 as a tribute. Brazilian jazz pianistEliane Elias dedicated her 2013 albumI Thought About You to Chet Baker.[53][54]
Australian musicianNick Murphy chose "Chet Faker" as his stage name as a tribute to Baker. Murphy said, "I listened to a lot of jazz and I was a big fan of ... the way he sang, when he moved into mainstream singing. He had this really fragile vocal style—this really, broken, close-up, and intimate style. The name is kind of just an ode to Chet Baker and the mood of music he used to play—something I would like to at least pay homage to in my own music."[55]
In 2023,Rolling Stone ranked Baker at number 116 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[56]
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