Chet Baker
Proud to be an Okie from Los Angeles

Chet Baker was born on a farm in Oklahoma.

Yes, the coolest of the Cool West Coast Jazzmen was an Oklahoma farm boy. But being part of a family during the Dust Bowl - Chet was born two months after the start of the Great Depression - it wasn't that odd that the Bakers would relocate. His dad, Chesney (which was Chet's full name as well), had been barely scraping by at various jobs and had learned there was good employment in the burgeoning war industry on the West Coast. So in 1940, when Chet was 10, the family moved to Los Angeles.

Chet showed considerable ability, not just in sports (although he was small) and academically (he was actually advanced up a grade), but also in music. Chet had a good voice, and his mom, Vera, liked to hear him sing in his boy-soprano range.

After first playing the trombone, Chet switched to trumpet. Even in school Chet played by ear since he was able to learn the parts at a single hearing. None of the teachers realized he never really learned how to read music.

A childhood accident knocked out one of his front teeth. But not knowing that you weren't suppose to be able to play a brass instrument without all your front teeth, Chet just kept playing. His range was limited but that didn't bother him since playing high notes was just showing off.

That said, Chet's home life was not easy. He felt smothered by his doting mother and his dad, who had abandoned a possible music career when Chet was born, had become sullen and morose.

The family was also living in LA, remember. The kids had it all: beach parties, hot rods, and - yes, jazz. Chet jumped into the rebellious youth culture with élan. About all he cared for in school was playing in the band and his grades began to fall.

With a rocky home life - a sour father on his best days and an over-attentive mother - by 1946 Chet wanted a break. Although the war was over, Chet decided he would join the army and see the world. His mom, afraid her son was turning into a rebel without a cause, agreed and gave the seventeen-year-old Chet permission to join up.

Chet was shipped overseas and landed in Germany. Although he still couldn't read music very well, he landed a spot in the post band. His poor sight reading skills weren't important since like in high school Chet would he'd listen to the other trumpet players and then play his part by ear. When he tried out for the dance band the conductor was impressed by the young soldier's ability.

Music enjoyment was rapidly becoming electrified. Radios were everywhere and Chet and his buddies would lisen to the new jazz music broadcast from America. Stan Kenton, Shorty Rogers, Art Pepper, and a wild and crazy cat named Dizzie Gillespie were playing new types of jazz. The big bands, although not gone, were disappearing. A small combo - five guys, maybe even three - would suffice.

Chet returned home and went back to high school - he was only nineteen - and graduated. He then entered El Camino Junior College. As before the only class he had any interested in was playing in the band. The director, though, wasn't as impressed as earlier teachers or Chet's friends. Sure, Chet had talent and he played with a good tone, but he was no virtuoso. Finally Chet dropped out of El Camino.

Chet learned there was a club in the San Fernando Valley called the Showtime. There on Monday nights musicians would gather and jam. It was at the Showtime that Chet began attracting the notice of the professionals.

The sessions weren't just a group gathering in the back after the show. The jams became part of the night's performance and were highly organized. The newcomers were picked and chosen and found themselves sitting in with likes of Shorty Rogers, Maynard Ferguson, and Art Pepper. Sometimes you even had André Previn playing piano, for crying out loud!

But it was the playing of a young trumpet player named Miles Davis that caught Chet's ear. He first heard Miles in 1949 on a set of 78 recordings which after technology had advanced were released on the now iconic album the Birth of the Cool. Miles was only three years older than Chet, but had already established himself as one of the leading "cool" jazz instrumentalists.

As the century hit the mid-point, Chet was spending his time going to various jam sessions and playing in the occasional club. But this was also the time when being a jazz musician was almost synonymous - at least in the public mind - with being a doper.

Since his high school days, Chet had been - as one friend described him - a "weedhead". But now a new acquaintance showed him how a stick of a needle brought instantaneous mood alteration. But on his first try, Chet got so sick that his friend figured Chet would never take the junk again. He was wrong.

It was a hazardous habit and the country was replete with tales of the horrors of "dope fiends". Penalties for infractions were stiff, and depending on what you were caught with you could get shipped to San Q for decades.

Fortunately (for Chet) this was also a day before the War-On-Drugs mandatory sentencing. One night he was stopped by the police. After a search the officers found some junk. The judge gave Chet a choice of going to jail or re-enlisting in the army. Even though there was another war on - the Korean War - Chet took the option.

If the judge thought that another stint in the army for the kid would "straighten him out" (to use a phrase favored by certain follicularly challenged residents of Chet's natal state), he didn't know Chet. Particularly since rather than being shipped out to the combat zone, Chet was posted to San Francisco.

He had a fine time, and he again landed a spot in the company band. A typical day for Chet was to get up and play reveille. Then he'd rehearse with the band during the morning. Next there would be some time off for substance abuse followed by more practice on the trumpet. He'd end the day playing taps before hitting the sack. On his time off, Chet would head to Frisco and hit the jam sessions.

By now Chet was known as part of the West Coast scene. After his discharge, he got a job with Stan Getz, and when Charlie Parker began playing on the West Coast and Dizzie Gillespie wasn't available (or was fed up with Bird), he'd hire Chet.

But Chet's real breakthrough was in 1952, when Gerry Mulligan - the baritone saxophonist who had played with Miles Davis on Birth of the Cool - hired Chet as a permanent member of his band. By now Gerry was not just playing good jobs but was cutting shellacs. One of the recordings, "My Funny Valentine" started off with an extended solo by Chet, and it became a hit.

From then on Chet's rise was, if not meteoric, then pretty darn close to it. Within two years the papers mentioned him along with Charlie Parker and Stan Getz as someone who provided high class music. Chet was soon appearing with his own group or with others at clubs and jazz concerts. He was even booked at Birdland - the prestigious New York nightclub that was launched specifically for showcasing the music of Charlie Parker. It wasn't just Chet's trumpet playing that gained notice. In 1954 he was voted the #4 male vocalist by Downbeat Magazine. Sometimes he would tour without his trumpet and just sing.

Then in 1955, Chet really hit the big time. On March 12, he - with Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan - played in Carnegie Hall. Chet was only 25.

It would be nice to say that Chet lived happily ever after. But if Chet gained fame by his playing and singing, he hit the news even more for his drug use. The late 1950's through the 1960's saw a never ending rash of news stories where Chet would be arrested for everything from possession to forging prescriptions.

His behavior certainly wasn't cool. He would drive at high speed down Manhattan's crowded streets shouting imprecations at pedestrians or at other drivers. He later said he had over 2500 unpaid speeding tickets. Professionally he became both hostile and absurdly over-critical. During a performance he once began berating pianist Mike Abene for not playing well. Chet sat down and began pounding the keys. The trouble was Chet couldn't play piano. "It was ridiculous," one of the band members commented.

In Europe the drug laws - although by no means insignificant - were less draconian than in America and Chet spent more and more time across the ocean. It got to where Chet preferred England, a country that tried to address both the criminal aspects of addiction and also treat addiction as a disease. To this end, English law allowed doctors to prescribe drugs - including heroin - to their patients. Some have doubted whether the program, enlightened as it might seem, really was that effective. But Chet liked it.

But landing steady work was difficult if you keep getting arrested and deported. Chet became well known to the police. In London, he landed in the hospital after he contracted blood poisoning from sharing needles on the streets. Suspecting that Chet was up to no good, the police had fixed a movie camera to monitor his bed. Then when one of his friends, the bass player Giovanni Tommaso, visited him and passed on a cash royalty payment from RCA the police naturally assumed they were witnessing a drug deal. Although Giovanni was able to explain what the money really was, the police were getting tired of hassling with Chet.

So when he got out of the hospital, the police soon arrested him again and threw him into a padded cell. After Chet spent ten days in jail, he was deported to France. Once across the Channel, Chet was immediately arrested again. But it turned out that his enforced abstinence had done the job and there were no drugs in his system. Chet was released.

From then on Chet's life was up and down, mostly down. In 1961 he was arrested in Italy. But instead of the authorities playing the never ending deportation ping-pong, they sentenced Chet to 16 months in prison. Although you'll read that he gave up music for several years, actually it was only about a year. He could still bring in the fans and in 1974, he and Gerry Mulligan again played in Carnegie Hall. But Chet never kicked the habit.

Chet's personal life was a bit complex. While in his second stint in the Army, Chet had married a young woman named Charlaine Souder who was also something of a free spirit. The marriage lasted only a few years. Then around 1956 Chet married a lady named Halema Alli. This union also didn't last long in practice although officially they remained hitched until 1965. That year he married this third wife Carol Jackson, a liaison that lasted until Chet died in 1988.

Pretty much everyone knows the basics of Chet's sad demise. He had gone to Amsterdam to perform and shortly after three o'clock in the morning on May 13, 1988, he was found by a policemen. Chet was lying on the pavement in front of his hotel. He had evidently fallen from the second story and must have died immediately.

References and Further Reading

Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, James Gavin, Chicago Review Press, 2011.

"How Did Cool Become Such a Big Deal?", David Skinner, Humanities, Volume 35, Number 4, July/August 2014.

"Chet Baker, Jazz Trumpeter, Dies at 59 in a Fall", Jon Pareles, The New York Times, May 14, 1988.