Of heroin’s many jazz victims, Chet Baker may well be the most handsome, and, consequently, the best known. Baker (a native of Oklahoma!) first stepped into the limelight playing with Charlie Parker—another great musician lost to heroin—in the early fifties. Soon afterwards, he joined up with Gerry Mulligan, and their pianoless quartet, famous for its contrapuntal interplay, quickly shot to the top of the jazz world, which is to say that at least twenty people listened to them at some point, and some of those people probably did so intentionally. Listeners adored his minimalistic style and velvety tone, and his natural good looks, tragic mystique, and gentle, melancholy singing voice drew female fans in droves. Baker’s success was not to last long, however, and after falling prey to heroin in the mid-fifties, his career began to steadily ebb, culminating most symbolically with the loss of his teeth (some say in a bar fight, others simply from excessive drug use) and a fifteen month stint in the Italian penal system. Baker made several minor comebacks in subsequent decades, but rarely returned to the United States. He died in 1988, after a mysterious fall from his third-story hotel-room balcony.Little Girl Blue (Instrumental)
Embraceable You, Blue Note Records, 1995
Recorded in the late fifties (but unreleased until 1995), Chet’s playing here is remarkable for its simplicity and economy of notes. The stripped down trio, including only guitar and bass, further emphasizes what is already a stunningly understated performance.
Angel Eyes
Chet Baker with Fifty Italian Strings, Ojc, 1959
While this album is occasionally criticized for excessively schmaltzy strings, the orchestral arrangements in this song are generally unobtrusive, and leave plenty of room for Chet’s voice to take center stage. A great instance of his unorthodox singing—flat, and tenuous, but beautiful in its own way.
--Chris C
