Chet Baker
December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988
Trumpet player Chet Baker began to get noticed in the early ’50s first while playing with Charlie Parker, and then soon after, Gerry Mulligan. More than just a jazz player, Baker was a crooner, and a handsome one at that. If jazz had a James Dean, it was Chet Baker. His name is synonymous with the cool jazz of the ’50s and ’60s. But the ’60s were actually unkind to Baker as he battled a major heroin addiction for which he served a one-year term in an Italian prison. He was even kicked out of West Germany and England and then deported from Germany. Back in the US, Baker landed in the San Francisco area where he again found himself serving a small jail term for prescription fraud. And it was around this time that Baker was severely beaten after a gig in what may have been a botched drug deal, the result of which forced him to learn how to play wearing dentures. There is some speculation however, that his heavy drug use actually destroyed his teeth. Baker did his best to make a living well into the early ’80s by the time Elvis Costello selected him to play the trumpet on his 1983 song, “Shipbuilding.” The song (and album Punch The Clock) was a hit in the US and abroad, thereby turning a new generation of fans on to Baker. But the momentum that was building came to a crashing halt when Baker was found dead outside his second-story window at a hotel in Amsterdam. Although his death was officially ruled an accidental fall, the fact there were drugs in his system and no witnesses only fueled the rumors (none proven) that he either committed suicide or was murdered. He was 58.
What You Should Own
I think the biggest talent of Baker was become his trumpet, namely himself. In the purest sense.