Chet Baker 
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Chet Baker » Bio
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Real name: Chesney Henry Baker
Born: Dec 23, 1929 in Yale, OK
Styles: Vocal Jazz, Brazil, West Coast Jazz, Cool,
Instruments: Vocals, Trumpet
Chet Baker was born in Yale, Oklahoma. His father, Chesney Baker, sr., played guitar semi-professionally in a local Country-and-Western band. When Chet was 13 years old his father bought him a trumpet, and Chet started taking lessons at Glendale Jr.High School, but as he was more inclined to play by ear than by the written music, this was not too succesful.
However, during his high school years, he played in the school's marching band as well as in a dance band during evenings, but at 16 he quit school for good and - after adding one year to his age - went into the US Army. He was soon transferred to Berlin, Germany, in a clerk´s position, but before long ended up as a member of the 298th Army Band.
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Following his discharge in 1948, he returned to Los Angeles, for a short time studying music theory at El Camino College, but most often hanging around and listening to whoever of the young, promising trumpet players came through town, Red Rodney, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, or playing with the Californian talents, often jamming at "The Lighthouse", "Bop City" and "Blackhawk".
For whatever reason, he reenlisted in the army in 1950, joined the Presidio Army Band in San Francisco. Though still able to play in the band there, life away from L.A. did not appeal too much to him, and after a couple of months, he deserted. After having reported to the military authorities again, he went through psychiatric tests at a military hospital and was finally declared unfit for military service.
In 1950, while stationed at the Presidio, in San Francisco, Baker became a regular at Bop City. In 1952, back in Los Angeles he won an audition with Charlie Parker, then was recruited by Gerry Mulligan into his ground-breaking pianoless quartet, which held forth at the Haig, in Hollywood.
Recordings by the quartet made Baker famous. He went solo, working again with Parker, then forming a succession of groups as a leader, first in the United States and, from 1955, in Europe.
With Baker's carelessness about financial matters and dislike of conflicts, it was inevitable that the quartet should split up. This it did in the summer of 1955, and a few weeks later, Baker started his 7-month European tour which ended up being twice as long as had been scheduled from the beginning. Joining him from the start were pianist Dick Twardzik, bassist Jimmy Bond and drummer Peter Littman, but unfortunately only a few recordings of that quartet were made, and on October 21, 1955, Twardzik died of an overdose,in his hotel room in Paris.
For the remaining tour, which was the most extensive, yet done by an American jazz musician, Baker had to rely on many different backings: some were not up to his own standards, but he also got in touch with first-rate musicians, with whom he played during his later visits to - and, travels around - Europe: Lars Gullin, Bobby Jaspar, and Jacques Pelzer.
Back in the states in April, 1956, he immediately formed a new group and continued recording for Pacific Jazz, his playing now oriented a bit more towards the current "neo-bop" trend.
In-the autumn of 1959 Baker went to Italy, this time as a soloist, and for the following four and a half years he worked in Europe. On many occasions later on, he has spoken openly about his ups and downs during that period, including his time in prison in Italy, and it is evident that he has never seen himself as the unhappy or romantic outlaw or misfit, that part of the press often labelled him.
Back in USA again on March 4, 1964, things were different from when he left in '59: Not only did he bring a wife and son, but as rock music was rapidly taking over, work for a jazzman, and particularly for one, who had been off the US scene for almost 5 years, was not too easy to get. When he was ripped off by his manager, he went to California with the family.
Soon after this, his downhill slide started: he recorded several albums for the World Pacific label, commercial music of no jazzvalue, and in August 1966 he was knocked down and badly hurt. Worst of all (for a trumpet player): His teeth were knocked and kicked out, and for several years he was hardly able to play, as can be witnessed by the few record dates he had.
From 1970 Baker gave up playing altogether and lived on welfare with his wife and children, but in 1973 he took up the trumpet again, and one incident in particular triggered his comeback: During a visit to Denver to see his old friend Phil Urso, he stopped by at a club, where Dizzy Gillespie was playing. When Gillespie heard that Baker was playing regularly again and was interested in getting gigs, he called up the Canterino Brothers, who were running New York's legendary "Half Note". Baker then played three weeks at the Half Note in July, and this was the beginning of his comeback.
However, working opportunities were still limited in the States, so in July 1975, Baker again tried his luck in Europe, after 11 years' absence. And although he had been out of focus for almost this entire period, he was definitely not a forgotten man in Europe.
In 1982 Baker was in severe decline by then, after a surprisingly long life of drug addiction and fast living, but, even on the downhill, Baker's diminished sound could envelop an audience in wistful romance.
Once in a while, he was back in the States for a short while: to see the family in Oklahoma , to do a gig or a record date, but he returned to Europe pretty soon, and he ended up being the most frequently-recorded among the American jazzmen in Europe.
A lyrical, self-taught improviser with a soft touch that seemed to kiss the notes as they flew by, Baker laid claim to Miles Davis' cool, laid-back approach early on and made it his, for life. With his wan, Hollywood good looks and bad-boy reputation, Baker became the posterboy for West Coast jazz. In a style that combined restraint with a certain nervous agitation and a strong dose of sentimentality, particularly on ballads, Baker captured the imagination not only of jazz lovers, but of a general public fascinated as much by his lifestyle as his music. Baker's high, whispered vocals, even more popular now than in his heyday, captured the same sleepy intimacy as his trumpet, particularly on such tunes as "I Fall in Love Too Easily," and "Everything Happens To Me."
Baker's prolonged heroin addiction, and his many subsequent arrests, ensured that his career, a large part of which he spent in Europe fleeing the authorities, was sadly uneven, though a methadone recovery program in the 1980s led to widespread touring. Just before he died - on May 13, 1988, in Amsterdam, under mysterious circumstances, falling out of a second story window - Baker played himself in a revealing documentary by Bruce Weber, Let's Get Lost. The beginning of an autobiography, As Though I Had Wings, appeared posthumously in 1997.
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