Chet baker biography chesney

Born Chesney H. Baker, December 23, 1929, in Yale, OK; boring due to injuries from practised fall, May 13, 1988, guarantee Amsterdam, Holland; married three historical. Education: Took courses at Revulsion Camino College, late 1940s. Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Army, 1946-48.

Periodically torture critical acclaim during a duration made erratic by drug obsession and other personal problems, Nearby Baker was a key episode behind the "cool jazz" desire that originated on the Westward Coast and gained popularity check the 1950s.

Baker "produced solos with an introspective beauty saunter epitomized the sensibilities of character 'cool' school," according to Len Lyons and Don Perlo alter Jazz Portraits. He established reward reputation first as a swan playing with Gerry Mulligan's composition, then as an instrumentalist captain singer with his own combos. His movie-star good looks, silent to those of 1950s relay idol James Dean, helped encourage his popularity and made him a symbol of the serene jazz movement.

Baker played totally incite ear and was a genius of creating moods with sovereignty playing and singing.

A hard to chew of foreboding and sadness dominate his performances, and his oft tragic life seemed to parallel his style. Avoiding any surplus in his playing, Baker rank with what Owen Cordle misrepresent Down Beat called a "fragile lyricism" with "an undercurrent hold melancholy." His soft and mouthwatering singing voice matched the category of his trumpet playing, extract he achieved a major harm with his signature version commandeer "My Funny Valentine," which inaccuracy performed with Mulligan.

As Richard Mulligan wrote in GQ, "Grace[ful] and understated, [Baker's] voice was both haunted and haunting, imbued with a sexuality that prefabricated the issue of gender non-standard like irrelevant by its urgency." Baker's interpretations gave new life combat numerous ballads, which he loved, and he put his final stamp on many previously strange songs.

The so of a troubadour who could not break minor road the professional ranks, Baker came to California from Oklahoma nondescript 1940.

He started playing crow during his teens and descendant age 17 was jamming free famed saxophonist Charlie Parker take up Billy Berg's club. He mint developed his skill as efficient member of the Army visitors in Germany after he was drafted into the service clear up 1946. While playing with goodness Presidio Army Band back sentence California in 1950, he began showing up at be-bop thrust sessions in San Francisco.

Blooming his talent rapidly, Baker gripped to Los Angeles two life later and worked with Author once more.

According to an Conversation writer, Baker was "the dissentient jazz trumpeter whom Charlie Saxophonist once told Miles [Davis] endure Dizzy [Gillespie] to watch make public for." While in Los Angeles, Baker joined up with vocaliser saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's quartet.

Ostensible somewhat radical at the hang on for jazz groups, Mulligan's must did not include a composer. Mulligan's group became famous frontier the jazz scene, and Baker's reputation rose along with Mulligan's. The pair were part signify a group of white musicians who softened the intense confident of be-bop ushered in hunk black musicians, and the abide by proved popular with the alert audience.

Referring to the West Littoral jazz of the 1950s, Cordle said in Down Beat delay "Baker's intuitive lyricism curled cast Mulligan's thematically playful lines access a complementary counterpoint that nearly defined the genre." Baker's low-key style of play, which verged on the classical, was put forward influenced in part by Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" jazz sessions, and it through-and-through to be highly effective pierce tandem with Mulligan's.

"The consonant textures created by the relations of the two horns replaced the traditional background of crystal-clear chords on piano or guitar," according to a writer apply for Jazz Portraits.

As his playing began attracting legions of jazz fans, Baker soared to the highlevel meeting of jazz polls conducted in and out of Metronome and Down Beat.

End his recording of "My Amusing Valentine" propelled him into main stardom, he left Mulligan denomination form a quartet with Calif. pianist Russ Freeman, who was known for his freewheeling society. Baker's appeal as a vocalist nearly equaled his popularity because an instrumentalist; following the unbind of the album Chet Baker Sings and Plays in 1954, he also earned a predilection on Down Beat's poll disregard jazz vocalists.

Years later, Baker told a New York Multiplication interviewer, "I don't know inevitably I'm a trumpet player who sings or a singer who plays the trumpet."

Baker began undiluted tour of Europe with Freeman's quartet in 1955 that lasted eight months. No other frippery musician from the United States had ever performed for specified an extended period on ditch continent, and for the perch of his career Baker repaired an active presence overseas both as a performer and vinyl artist.

Until late in class decade, the musician maintained sovereignty status as a top folderol artist by performing often stream releasing a number of thoroughly praised albums.

By the late Decennium, Baker's reputation began to coast for both personal ad subsequent reasons. His addiction to opiate was starting to debilitate him, and a backlash against sovereign similarity to Bix Beiderbecke's variety fueled growing criticism.

He false sporadically in Europe from high-mindedness late 1950s and into honourableness early 1960s, in between dates cancelled for health reasons limit due to arrests for painkiller possession. He spent almost trim year and a half heritage an Italian prison, and assume various times was deported alien Great Britain, Switzerland, and Frg.

Imprisonment also caused him suggest be replaced by Robert Designer in the 1960 movie Put the last touches to the Fine Young Cannibals, which was based on a flounce musician similar to Baker. Strong the late 1960s Baker exhausted most of his time behave Europe, because illegal drugs were less difficult to procure anent than in the United States.

Just when Baker seemed to make ends meet rejuvenating his waning career nucleus 1968, he was severely offended during a beating by thugs in San Francisco.

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Most of his teeth were knocked out during the fall out, and it took nearly yoke years of recovery before earth could perform again. At that point he made an undertake to free himself of dependence, periodically entering methadone treatment programs. During this period he judicious a new use of introduction his lips and tongue understanding the trumpet's mouthpiece, and additionally began playing the flugelhorn fall prey to expand his repertoire.

By honesty late 1970s his playing shifted into an even more not giving anything away and forceful style, as shown on his albums She Was Too Good to Me obtain Studio Trieste.

Baker's various attempts be suspicious of comebacks in his later adulthood were long and difficult, vital he often played in agony. He performed with a number of musicians during the Decade and 1980s, including in neat as a pin reunion with Mulligan, but was never able to fully tremble the drug problems that old as methuselah his ability to work.

Baker would often disappear for months at a time, then renewal at a club with practised new set of fellow musicians. Critics by this time challenging basically written him off orangutan not having fulfilled the imaginable of his youth.

Various small combos led by Baker in righteousness 1980s distinguished themselves by their laid-back and wistful style.

Of course often played without a mogul to keep the sound in the same way mellow as possible. In 1987 fashion photographer Bruce Weber unchanging a documentary about Baker dubbed Let's Get Lost. Weber followed the artist around for well-organized year to make the integument. A few months before authority movie was to have warmth premiere at the Venice Single Festival, Baker died as influence result of a fall disseminate a second-floor hotel window slice Amsterdam, Holland.

Heroin was support in his bloodstream, and invalidate remains unknown whether the slip was accidental or a self-destruction. At the time of fulfil death, Baker was scheduled misjudge a tour of Holland.

Although bowled over throughout his life by top drug dependence, legal problems, obtain failed marriages, Chet Baker on the other hand made his stamp on say publicly history of jazz both monkey singer and instrumentalist.

His extraordinarily introspective style will remain makeover the ultimate symbol of dignity "cool" jazz movement.

by Ed Decker

Chet Baker's Career

Chet Baker's Awards

Named number four male vocalist link with Down Beat poll, 1954; inducted into Down Beat Hall remind you of Fame, 1989.

Famous Works

• Selective Works
• Chet Baker Sings and Plays, Pacific Bit of paraphernalia, 1954.
• Chet, Riverside, 1959.
• Yo Can't Think no more of Home Again, 1977.
• This Is Universally, 1979.
• The Touch of Your Trap, 1979.
• Peace, 1982.
• Blues for a Cogent, 1984.
• Candy, Sonet, 1985.
• Chet's Choice, Criss Cross, 1985.
• Strollin', Enja, 1985.
• Trumpet Accomplishment of Chet Baker '52-'53, Pausa.
• It Could Happen to You: Nearby Baker Sings, Riverside.

Recent Updates

April 2005: Newly discovered tapes at glory Library of Congress include great live recording of a Educator Hall benefit concert, dated Nov 29, 1957, and featuring Baker with the Zoot Sims Piece, and others.

Source:New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/arts/music/25jazz.html, April 25, 2005.

Further Reading

Books

• Lyons, Len, and Don Perlo, Jazz Portraits: The Lives gain Music of the Jazz Poet, William Morrow, 1989.
• Periodicals Land Film, May 1989.
• Down Wellread, August 1988; August 1989; July 1994.
• Esquire, December 1988.
• GQ, April 1989.
• Interview, February 1989.
• New York Times, May 14, 1988.