Biography by Matt Collar
An icon of
West Coast cool jazz, Chet Baker rose to fame in '50s with his lyrical
trumpet lines and spare, romantic singing. After being handpicked for a
West Coast tour with Charlie Parker, he burst onto the scene as a member
of Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet, whose recording of "My Funny
Valentine" made him a star even beyond his cult jazz audience. Signed to
Pacific Jazz, he released a series of popular albums beginning with
1954's Chet Baker Sings, which featured his definitive vocal take of "My
Funny Valentine;" from then on his signature song. By the end of the
decade, he had topped both the Downbeat and Metronome Magazine reader's
polls, famously beating out two of the era's most renowned trumpeters
Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. He was also named DownBeat top jazz
vocalist in 1954. At the height of his success, drug addiction and
numerous incarcerations dimmed his spotlight and found him living and
working a peripatetic lifestyle in Europe for much of the '60s and '70s.
He also suffered the loss of his teeth, which hampered his playing
until he worked his way back to health and launched a comeback with
1974's She Was Too Good To Me. He was also the subject of fashion
photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber's Oscar-nominated 1988
documentary Let's Get Lost, which helped renew interest in his work.
Tragically, he died that same year after falling out of a second story
window of his Amsterdam hotel. Baker recorded prolifically during the
last few decades of his life, leading to a wave of posthumously released
albums, including My Favorite Songs, Vol. 1-2: The Last Great Concert,
which captured one of his final concerts in Germany with the NDR Big
Band and Radio Orchestra Hannover. In 2001, in recognition of the
album's lasting influence, Chet Baker Sings was inducted into the Grammy
Hall of Fame. Ethan Hawke portrayed Baker in the 2015 film Born to Be
Blue, and yet more archival recordings surfaced with 2023's Blue Room:
The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in Holland.
Born in 1929 in Yale,
Oklahoma, Baker's early years were marked by a rural, dustbowl
upbringing. His father, Chesney Henry Baker,Sr., was a guitarist who was
forced to turn to other work during the Depression; his mother, Vera
(Moser) Baker, worked in a perfumery. The family moved from Oklahoma to
Glendale, CA, in 1940. As a child, Baker sang at amateur competitions
and in a church choir. Before his adolescence, his father brought home a
trombone for him, then replaced it with a trumpet when the larger
instrument proved too much for him. He had his first formal training in
music in junior high and later at Glendale High School, but would play
largely by ear for the rest of his life. In 1946, when he was only 16
years old, he dropped out of high school and his parents signed papers
allowing him to enlist in the army; he was sent to Berlin, Germany,
where he played in the 298th Army Band. After his discharge in 1948, he
enrolled at El Camino College in Los Angeles, where he studied theory
and harmony while playing in jazz clubs, but he quit college in the
middle of his second year. He re-enlisted in the army in 1950 and became
a member of the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco. But
he also began sitting in at clubs in the city and he finally obtained a
second discharge to become a professional jazz musician.
Baker
initially played in Vido Musso's band, then with Stan Getz. (The first
recording featuring Baker is a performance of "Out of Nowhere" that
comes from a tape of a jam session made on March 24, 1952, and was
released on the Fresh Sound Records LP Live at the Trade Winds.) His
break came quickly, when, in the spring of 1952, he was chosen at an
audition to play a series of West Coast dates with Charlie Parker,
making his debut with the famed saxophonist at the Tiffany Club in Los
Angeles on May 29, 1952. That summer, he began playing in the Gerry
Mulligan Quartet, a group featuring only baritone sax, trumpet, bass,
and drums -- no piano -- that attracted attention during an engagement
at the Haig nightclub and through recordings on the newly formed Pacific
Jazz Records (later known as World Pacific Records), beginning with the
10" LP Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which featured Baker's famous rendition
of "My Funny Valentine."
The Gerry Mulligan Quartet lasted for
less than a year, folding when its leader went to jail on a drug charge
in June 1953. Baker went solo, forming his own quartet, which initially
featured Russ Freeman on piano, Red Mitchell on bass, and Bobby White on
drums, and making his first recording as leader for Pacific Jazz on
July 24, 1953. Baker was hailed by fans and critics and he won a number
of polls in the next few years. In 1954, Pacific Jazz released Chet
Baker Sings, an album that increased his popularity beyond his core jazz
audience; he would continue to sing for the rest of his career.
Acknowledging his chiseled good looks, nearby Hollywood came calling and
he made his acting debut in the film Hell's Horizon, released in the
fall of 1955. But he declined an offer of a studio contract and toured
Europe from September 1955 to April 1956. When he returned to the U.S.,
he formed a quintet that featured saxophonist Phil Urso and pianist
Bobby Timmons. Contrary to his reputation for relaxed, laid-back
playing, Baker turned to more of a bop style with this group, which
recorded the album Chet Baker & Crew for Pacific Jazz in July 1956.
Baker
toured the U.S. in February 1957 with the Birdland All-Stars and took a
group to Europe later that year. He returned to Europe to stay in 1959,
settling in Italy, where he acted in the film Urlatori Alla Sbarra.
Hollywood, meanwhile, had not entirely given up on him, at least as a
source of inspiration, and in 1960, a fictionalized film biography of
his life, All the Fine Young Cannibals, appeared with Robert Wagner in
the starring role of Chad Bixby.
Baker had become addicted to
heroin in the 1950s and had been incarcerated briefly on several
occasions, but his drug habit only began to interfere with his career
significantly in the 1960s. He was arrested in Italy in the summer of
1960 and spent almost a year and a half in jail. He celebrated his
release by recording Chet Is Back! for RCA in February 1962. (It has
since been reissued as The Italian Sessions and as Somewhere Over the
Rainbow.) Later in the year, he was arrested in West Germany and
expelled to Switzerland, then France, later moving to England in August
1962 to appear as himself in the film The 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 in West
Germany, he was deported back to the U.S. He returned to America after
five years in Europe on March 3, 1964, and played primarily in New York
and Los Angeles during the mid-'60s, having switched temporarily from
trumpet to flügelhorn. In the summer of 1966, he suffered a severe
beating in San Francisco that was related to his drug addiction. The
incident is usually misdated and frequently exaggerated in accounts of
his life, often due to his own unreliable testimony. It is said, for
example, that all his teeth were knocked out, which is not the case,
though one tooth was broken and the general deterioration of his teeth
led to his being fitted with dentures in the late '60s, forcing him to
retrain his embouchure. The beating was not the cause of the decline in
his career during this period, but it is emblematic of that decline. By
the end of the '60s, he was recording and performing only infrequently
and he stopped playing completely in the early '70s.
Regaining
some control over his life by taking methadone to control his heroin
addiction (though he remained an addict), Baker eventually mounted a
comeback that culminated in a prominent New York club engagement in
November 1973 and a reunion concert with Gerry Mulligan at Carnegie Hall
in November 1974 that was recorded and released by Epic Records. Also
that year, he again marked his comeback with the excellent studio album
She Was Too Good To Me, which featured altoist Paul Desmond. By the
mid-'70s, Baker was able to return to Europe and he spent the rest of
his life performing there primarily, with occasional trips to Japan and
periods back in the U.S., though he had no permanent residence. Other
notable albums released during this period are 1977's Once Upon a
Summertime, 1977's Don Sebesky-produced You Can't Go Home Again (which
found him surrounded by luminaries, including Desmond, Michael Brecker,
Ron Carter, and Tony Williams, among others), and 1980's Chet
Baker/Wolfgang Lackerschmid (a gorgeously atmospheric collaboration with
the German vibraphonist).
By the '80s, he started to attract the
attention of rock musicians, with whom he occasionally performed, for
example adding trumpet to Elvis Costello's recording of his
anti-Falklands War song "Shipbuilding" in 1983. In 1987, photographer
and filmmaker Bruce Weber undertook a documentary film about Baker. The
following year, Baker died in a fall from a hotel window in Amsterdam.
Weber's film, Let's Get Lost, premiered in September 1988 to critical
acclaim and earned an Academy Award nomination.
Baker recorded
often throughout the latter-half of his life and consequently there has
been a steady stream of posthumously released albums. My Favorite Songs,
Vol. 1-2: The Last Great Concert arrived soon after his passing and
captured one of his final concerts in Germany with the NDR Big Band and
Radio Orchestra Hannover. His work has also been collected in several
superb boxsets, including Mosaic's The Complete Pacific Jazz Studio
Recordings Of The Chet Baker Quartet Wi… and Chet Baker: the Pacific
Jazz Years, as well as The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings Of The Gerry
Mulligan Quartet With …. In 1997, Baker's unfinished autobiography was
published under the title As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir and the
book was optioned by Miramax for a film adaptation, though never
produced. A semi-fictional biopic starring Ethan Hawke as Baker, Born To
Be Blue, arrived in 2015, though none of the trumpeter's actual
recordings were featured in the film. In 2023, a long out-of-print
collection of archival recordings, Blue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio
Sessions in Holland, appeared featuring Baker with both pianist Frans
Elsen's trio, as well as his own touring ensemble, including pianist
Phil Markowitz, bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse, and drummer Charles
Rice.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/chet-baker-mn0000094210#biography
///////
Un ícono del cool jazz de la Costa Oeste, Chet Baker saltó a la fama en los años 50 con sus líricas líneas de trompeta y su canto romántico y sobrio. Después de ser elegido cuidadosamente para una gira por la Costa Oeste con Charlie Parker, irrumpió en escena como miembro del cuarteto sin piano de Gerry Mulligan, cuya grabación de "My Funny Valentine" lo convirtió en una estrella incluso más allá de su audiencia de jazz de culto. Firmado con Pacific Jazz, lanzó una serie de álbumes populares que comenzaron con Chet Baker Sings de 1954, que incluía su versión vocal definitiva de "My Funny Valentine"; a partir de entonces, su canción insignia. A finales de la década, había encabezado las encuestas de lectores de Downbeat y Metronome Magazine, superando a dos de los trompetistas más reconocidos de la época, Miles Davis y Clifford Brown. También fue nombrado vocalista de jazz DownBeat top en 1954. En el apogeo de su éxito, la adicción a las drogas y numerosos encarcelamientos atenuaron su atención y lo encontraron viviendo y trabajando en un estilo de vida itinerante en Europa durante gran parte de los años 60 y 70. También sufrió la pérdida de sus dientes, lo que obstaculizó su forma de tocar hasta que recuperó la salud y lanzó su regreso con She Was Too Good To Me de 1974. También fue objeto del documental Let's Get Lost, nominado al Oscar en 1988 por el fotógrafo de moda y cineasta Bruce Weber, que ayudó a renovar el interés en su trabajo. Trágicamente, murió ese mismo año después de caerse por la ventana del segundo piso de su hotel en Ámsterdam. Baker grabó prolíficamente durante las últimas décadas de su vida, lo que llevó a una ola de álbumes lanzados póstumamente, incluidos My Favorite Songs, Vol. 1-2: The Last Great Concert, que capturó uno de sus últimos conciertos en Alemania con la NDR Big Band y la Radio Orchestra Hannover. En 2001, en reconocimiento a la influencia duradera del álbum, Chet Baker Sings fue incluido en el Salón de la Fama de los Grammy. Ethan Hawke interpretó a Baker en la película Born to Be Blue de 2015, y aún surgieron más grabaciones de archivo con Blue Room: The Vara Studio Sessions de 2023 en Holanda.
Nacido en 1929 en Yale, Oklahoma, los primeros años de Baker estuvieron marcados por una educación rural y en un dustbowl. Su padre, Chesney Henry Baker, Sr., era un guitarrista que se vio obligado a dedicarse a otros trabajos durante la Depresión; su madre, Vera (Moser) Baker, trabajaba en una perfumería. La familia se mudó de Oklahoma a Glendale, California, en 1940. De niña, Baker cantaba en concursos de aficionados y en el coro de una iglesia. Antes de su adolescencia, su padre le trajo a casa un trombón y luego lo reemplazó con una trompeta cuando el instrumento más grande resultó demasiado para él. Tuvo su primera formación formal en música en la escuela secundaria y más tarde en la Escuela Secundaria Glendale, pero tocaría principalmente de oído por el resto de su vida. En 1946, cuando tenía solo 16 años, abandonó la escuela secundaria y sus padres firmaron documentos que le permitían alistarse en el ejército; fue enviado a Berlín, Alemania, donde tocó en la 298ª Banda del Ejército. Después de su baja en 1948, se matriculó en El Camino College de Los Ángeles, donde estudió teoría y armonía mientras tocaba en clubes de jazz, pero abandonó la universidad a mediados de su segundo año. Se volvió a alistar en el ejército en 1950 y se convirtió en miembro de la Sexta Banda del Ejército en el Presidio de San Francisco. Pero también comenzó a frecuentar clubes de la ciudad y finalmente obtuvo una segunda licencia para convertirse en músico profesional de jazz.
Baker tocó inicialmente en la banda de Vido Musso, luego con Stan Getz. (La primera grabación con Baker es una interpretación de "Out of Nowhere" que proviene de una cinta de una sesión improvisada realizada el 24 de marzo de 1952 y fue lanzada en el LP de Fresh Sound Records Live at the Trade Winds.) Su oportunidad llegó rápidamente, cuando, en la primavera de 1952, fue elegido en una audición para tocar en una serie de fechas en la Costa Oeste con Charlie Parker, debutando con el famoso saxofonista en el Tiffany Club de Los Ángeles el 29 de mayo de 1952. Ese verano, comenzó a tocar en el Cuarteto Gerry Mulligan, un grupo que presentaba solo saxo barítono, trompeta, bajo y batería, sin piano, que llamó la atención durante un compromiso en el club nocturno Haig y a través de grabaciones en el recién formado Pacific Jazz Records (más tarde conocido como World Pacific Records), comenzando con el LP de 10" Gerry Mulligan Quartet, que incluía la famosa interpretación de Baker de "My Funny Valentine."
El Cuarteto Gerry Mulligan duró menos de un año, retirándose cuando su líder fue a la cárcel acusado de drogas en junio de 1953. Baker se fue en solitario, formando su propio cuarteto, que inicialmente contó con Russ Freeman al piano, Red Mitchell al bajo y Bobby White a la batería, y realizó su primera grabación como líder de Pacific Jazz el 24 de julio de 1953. Baker fue aclamado por fanáticos y críticos y ganó varias encuestas en los años siguientes. En 1954, Pacific Jazz lanzó Chet Baker Sings, un álbum que aumentó su popularidad más allá de su audiencia principal de jazz; continuaría cantando por el resto de su carrera. Reconociendo su buena apariencia cincelada, el cercano Hollywood llamó e hizo su debut como actor en la película Hell's Horizon, estrenada en el otoño de 1955. Pero rechazó una oferta de contrato de estudio y realizó una gira por Europa desde septiembre de 1955 hasta abril de 1956. Cuando regresó a los Estados Unidos, formó un quinteto que incluía al saxofonista Phil Urso y al pianista Bobby Timmons. Contrariamente a su reputación de tocar relajado y relajado, Baker recurrió a un estilo más bop con este grupo, que grabó el álbum Chet Baker & Crew para Pacific Jazz en julio de 1956.
Baker realizó una gira por los Estados Unidos en febrero de 1957 con Birdland All-Stars y llevó a un grupo a Europa ese mismo año. Regresó a Europa para quedarse en 1959, estableciéndose en Italia, donde actuó en la película Urlatori Alla Sbarra. Hollywood, mientras tanto, no había renunciado por completo a él, al menos como fuente de inspiración, y en 1960, apareció una biografía cinematográfica ficticia de su vida, All the Fine Young Cannibals, con Robert Wagner en el papel protagónico de Chad Bixby.
Baker se había vuelto adicto a la heroína en la década de 1950 y había estado encarcelado brevemente en varias ocasiones, pero su adicción a las drogas solo comenzó a interferir significativamente en su carrera en la década de 1960. Fue arrestado en Italia en el verano de 1960 y pasó casi un año y medio en la cárcel. ¡Celebró su liberación grabando Chet Is Back! para RCA en febrero de 1962. (Desde entonces se ha reeditado como The Italian Sessions y Somewhere Over the Rainbow.) Más tarde ese año, fue arrestado en Alemania Occidental y expulsado a Suiza, luego a Francia, y luego se mudó a Inglaterra en agosto de 1962 para aparecer como él mismo en la película The Stolen Hours, que se estrenó en 1963. Fue deportado de Inglaterra a Francia por un delito de drogas en marzo de 1963. Vivió en París y actuó allí y en España durante el año siguiente, pero después de ser arrestado nuevamente en Alemania Occidental, fue deportado de regreso a los EE. UU. Regresó a Estados Unidos después de cinco años en Europa el 3 de marzo de 1964, y tocó principalmente en Nueva York y Los Ángeles a mediados de los 60, habiendo cambiado temporalmente de trompeta a flügelhorn. En el verano de 1966, sufrió una severa golpiza en San Francisco relacionada con su adicción a las drogas. El incidente suele estar mal fechado y con frecuencia exagerado en los relatos de su vida, a menudo debido a su propio testimonio poco confiable. Se dice, por ejemplo, que todos sus dientes fueron arrancados, lo cual no es el caso, aunque un diente se rompió y el deterioro general de sus dientes llevó a que se le colocaran dentaduras postizas a fines de los 60, lo que lo obligó a volver a entrenar su embocadura. La paliza no fue la causa del declive de su carrera durante este período, pero es emblemática de ese declive. A finales de los 60, estaba grabando y actuando con poca frecuencia y dejó de tocar por completo a principios de los 70.
Recuperando cierto control sobre su vida tomando metadona para controlar su adicción a la heroína (aunque seguía siendo un adicto), Baker finalmente montó un regreso que culminó con un destacado compromiso en un club de Nueva York en noviembre de 1973 y un concierto de reunión con Gerry Mulligan en el Carnegie Hall en noviembre de 1974 que fue grabado y lanzado por Epic Records. También ese año, volvió a marcar su regreso con el excelente álbum de estudio She Was Too Good To Me, que contó con el altoista Paul Desmond. A mediados de los 70, Baker pudo regresar a Europa y pasó el resto de su vida actuando allí principalmente, con viajes ocasionales a Japón y períodos de regreso en los EE.UU., aunque no tenía residencia permanente. Otros álbumes notables lanzados durante este período son Once Upon a Summertime de 1977, You Can't Go Home Again, producido por Don Sebesky en 1977 (que lo encontró rodeado de luminarias, incluidos Desmond, Michael Brecker, Ron Carter y Tony Williams, entre otros) y Chet Baker/Wolfgang Lackerschmid de 1980 (una colaboración maravillosamente atmosférica con el vibrafonista alemán).
Para los años 80, comenzó a atraer la atención de los músicos de rock, con quienes tocaba ocasionalmente, por ejemplo, agregando trompeta a la grabación de Elvis Costello de su canción contra la Guerra de las Malvinas "Shipbuilding" en 1983. En 1987, el fotógrafo y cineasta Bruce Weber realizó un documental sobre Baker. Al año siguiente, Baker murió al caerse de la ventana de un hotel en Ámsterdam. La película de Weber, Let's Get Lost, se estrenó en septiembre de 1988 con gran éxito de crítica y obtuvo una nominación al Premio de la Academia.
1. Do It the Hard Way (3:03
2. I'm Old Fashioned (5:07)
3. You're Driving Me Crazy (2:57)
4. It Could Happen to You (2:53)
5. My Heart Stood Still (3:28)
6. The More I See You (3:06)
7. Everything Happens to Me (5:05)
8. Dancing on the Ceiling (3:09)
9. How Long Has This Been Going On? (4:11)
10. Old Devil Moon (2:58)
11. While My Lady Sleeps [take 10, mono, bonus track] (4:19)
12. You Make Me Feel So Young [take 5, mono, bonus track] (3:37)
Credits::
Chet Baker (vocals, trumpet)
Kenny Drew (piano)
George Morrow, Sam Jones (bass)
Philly Joe Jones, Dannie Richmond (drums)
1958
This file is intended only for preview!
I ask you to delete the file from your hard drive or device after reading it.
thank for the original uploader
No comments:
Post a Comment