Chet Baker Biography
Although his photogenic looks and troubled personal story would establish Chet Baker (1929-1988) as jazz’s answer to James Dean, it was Baker’s immense musical talent that first made him famous. The trumpeter first achieved notoriety as a leading light in the West Coast school of cool jazz in the 1950s. His intimate, understated playing was a low-key contrast to the more aggressive style of many of his trumpet-playing contemporaries, and the same qualities were reflected in his occasional singing.
Chesney Henry Baker Jr. was born into a musical family; his father was a guitarist who was forced to abandon music by the economic realities of the Depression. During his childhood, Chet’s family moved to California, where he sang in a local church choir and in talent shows. He began playing trumpet as a child; although he received some formal training in high school, he was mostly self-taught on the instrument. When he was 16, he dropped out of high school to join the Army, and was sent to Berlin, where he played in the Army Band. Returning to civilian life two years later, he studied music theory at El Camino College, but dropped out in his second year to reenlist, joining the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco. During the same period, he began sitting in at the city’s jazz clubs, and soon left the service to pursue music full-time.
Baker’s talents were soon noticed, leading to an early stint in Stan Getz’s band and a breakthrough series of west coast dates backing Charlie Parker in 1952. The same year, Baker began playing in Gerry Mulligan’s innovative quartet, which would soon be recognized as one of the most influential and celebrated jazz groups of its era. His work with Mulligan won Baker considerable national attention, and it was with Mulligan that Baker first recorded his version of “My Funny Valentine,” a song with which he would remain closely associated for the rest of his life.
When Mulligan’s group disbanded in 1953, Baker formed his own quartet and cut his first recordings as leader. He won instant acclaim from critics and audiences, and the 1954 album Chet Baker Sings expanded his audience. By this point, the musician’s national profile was high enough that he was cast in a dramatic role in the film Hell’s Horizon. After a celebrated six-month tour of Europe, Baker returned home and formed a quintet that adopted a bop approach. Although he turned down a long-term Hollywood contract in order to concentrate on music, Baker’s life reportedly inspired the fictional 1960 film All the Fine Young Cannibals, with Robert Wagner playing the lead. By then, Baker had relocated to Italy, where in 1960 he was imprisoned for over a year on a drug charge. He resumed his music career after his release, but was deported back to America in 1964.
Baker’s heroin addiction would become a key element of his legend, but it was also a serious impediment to his musical life. By the late ’60s, he was performing and recording infrequently, and he stopped playing music altogether in the early ’70s. By late 1973, however, he had gained enough control over his addiction to stage a high-profile comeback in New York, which was followed a year later by a successful reunion show with Gerry Mulligan at Carnegie Hall. Baker began working steadily again, recording a series of albums for the CTI label that found him playing with renewed focus and fervor. For the remainder of his life, Baker continued to perform and record, mostly in Europe, but also in the U.S. and Japan. His 1983 guest appearance on Elvis Costello’s “Shipbuilding” helped to introduce Baker to a new, young audience, and his iconic status was confirmed with the release of Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s Oscar-nominated documentary about his life. By the time the film was released in 1988, Baker had been killed in a fall from a hotel window in Amsterdam.
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