Chesney Henry Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool".
Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals: Chet Baker Sings (1954) and It Could Happen to You (1958). Jazz historian Dave Gelly described the promise of Baker's early career as "James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one". His well-publicized drug 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.
Biography Early years Baker was born December 23, 1929, in Yale, Oklahoma, and raised in a musical household. His father, Chesney Baker Sr., was a professional Western swing guitarist, and his mother, Vera Moser, was a pianist who worked in a perfume factory. His maternal grandmother was Norwegian. Baker said that owing to the Great 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 to Glendale, California.
Baker began his musical career singing in a church choir. His father, a fan of Jack 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. His mother said that he had begun to memorize tunes on the radio before he was given an instrument. After "falling in love" with the trumpet, he improved noticeably in two weeks. Peers called Baker a natural musician to whom playing came effortlessly.
Baker received some musical education at Glendale High School, but he left school at the age of 16 in 1946 to join the United States Army. He was assigned to Berlin, Germany, where he joined the 298th Army Band. While stationed in Berlin, he became acquainted with modern jazz by listening to V-Discs of Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton. After leaving the Army in 1948, he studied music theory and harmony at El Camino College in Los Angeles. He dropped out during his second year to re-enlist. He became a member of the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco, spending time in clubs such as Bop City and the Black Hawk. He was discharged from the Army in 1951 and proceeded to pursue a career in music.
Career Baker performed with Vido Musso and Stan Getz before being chosen by Charlie Parker for a series of West Coast engagements.
In 1952, Baker joined the Gerry 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. With the quartet, Baker was a regular performer at Los Angeles jazz clubs such as The Haig and the Tiffany Club.
Baker formed a quartet with a rotation that included pianist Russ Freeman, bassists Bob Whitlock, Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon, and Jimmy Bond, and drummers Larry Bunker, Bob Neel, and Shelly Manne.
Baker's quartet released popular albums between 1953 and 1956. Baker won reader's polls at Metronome and DownBeat magazines, beating trumpeters Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. In 1954, readers named Baker the top jazz vocalist. In 1954, Pacific Jazz Records released Chet 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 by William Claxton, and his cool demeanor that evoked breezy California playboy living, became somewhat of a teen idol on top of being a respected, up-and-coming jazz musician. Hollywood studios saw movie star potential in Baker, and he made his acting debut in the film Hell'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 with Francy 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 the Barclay label that October. Some of these sessions were released in the United States as Chet Baker in Europe. 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".
One month into the tour, pianist Dick Twardzik died of a heroin overdose. Despite this, Baker continued the tour, employing local pianists.
Returning to Los Angeles post-tour, Baker returned to recording for Pacific Jazz. His output included three collaborations with Art Pepper, including Playboys, and the soundtrack to The James Dean Story. Baker moved to New York City, where he collaborated again with Gerry Mulligan for the 1957 release Reunion with Chet Baker. In 1958, Baker rejoined with Stan Getz for Stan Meets Chet. That same year, he also released It Could Happen to You, similar to Chet Baker Sings, notable for featuring his scat singing skills in lieu of trumpet-playing. His last significant release before returning to Europe was Chet, released by Riverside Records, featuring an all-star personnel that included pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones, all associated with leading jazz trumpeter Miles Davis.
Drug addiction and decline Soon after signing on with Riverside Records, Baker was arrested twice; the first arrest involved a stay at a Lexington hospital, then imprisonment at Rikers Island for four months on drug charges. Baker said he began using heroin in 1957. 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.
In late 1959, Baker returned to Europe, recording in Italy what became known as the Milano sessions with arranger and conductor Ezio Leoni (Len Mercer) and his orchestra. Baker appeared as himself in the musicarello film, Howlers in the Dock. Tabloids reviled Baker for his drug habit and reckless womanizing and infidelity. In August 1960, he was imprisoned in Lucca for importing narcotics, forging prescriptions, and drug abuse. This forced Leoni to communicate through the prison warden to coordinate arrangements with Baker as they prepared for recording.Chet Baker - 1959 Milano Sessions - Promo Sound, CD 4312 ADD
Baker spent nearly a year and a half in jail, and was later arrested in West Germany and expelled to Switzerland, then France, later moving to England in August 1962. He appeared as himself in the film Stolen 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. He settled in Milpitas, California, performing in San Francisco and San Jose between jail terms for prescription fraud.
Baker's first release in 1962, after his Italian prison sentence, was Chet Is Back! for RCA, balancing ballads with energetic bop. That same year, Baker collaborated with Ennio Morricone in Rome for a series of orchestral 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".
Baker returned to New York City in 1964. Throughout most of the 1960s, Baker played flugelhorn, and recorded music that could be classified as West Coast jazz. In 1964, he released The Most Important Jazz Album of 1964/65 on Colpix Records, and in 1965 he released Baby Breeze on Limelight. He then released five albums with Prestige, recorded in one week.
Baker fell behind on jazz's latest innovations. 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 contemporary pop songs arranged by Bud 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.
The following summer, already having reached a low point in his career, Baker was beaten up, probably while attempting to buy drugs, after performing at The Trident in Sausalito. In the film Let'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.
Regardless, the 1966 incident did lead to his teeth eventually deteriorating. By late 1968 or early 1969, he needed dentures. This ruined his embouchure, 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. 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's Magical Mystery album. In 1969, he released Albert's House, which features 11 compositions by Steve Allen, who organized the recording date to help Baker restart his career. In 1970, Baker released Blood, Chet and Tears.
After these unsuccessful releases, Baker withdrew from the music business. He did not release another album for four years, and from around 1968 to 1973, stopped performing in public. 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 on methadone for the next seven years.
Comeback In 1973, Baker attempted a comeback. Returning to the straight-ahead jazz that began his career, he drove to New York to perform again. In 1974, the India Navigation label released a live album of performances with saxophonist Lee Konitz. She Was Too Good to Me, released by CTI Records that same year, is considered a comeback album. His last release of 1974 was another live 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 recorded Once Upon a Summertime and You 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. He worked almost exclusively in Europe, only returning to the U.S. about once a year to attend some performances.
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 as Circle, SteepleChase, and Sandra.
During the early 1980s, Baker began to associate himself with musicians with whom he meshed well, such as guitarist Philip Catherine, bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and pianist Michel Graillier.
Later in his career, Baker preferred to play in ensembles without drums. 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 he thought the audience was too noisy.