Few musicians have embodied the romantic, and ultimately tragic, jazz figure as totally as Chesney "Chet" Baker. A fast liver who somehow managed to survive for nearly six decades, the Baker mystique has only reinforced one of the most haunting trumpet styles and ingenuous approaches to jazz singing.
Baker, who never learned to read music, was born in Oklahoma and got his training in army bands. His first big break came through a short tour with Charlie Parker in 1952. Later that year; he began working with Gerry Mulligan in a quartet that established an instant personality through the absence of a piano and the intriguing counterpoint between trumpet and baritone sax. An early recording of "My Funny Valentine" by the Mulligan quartet caused a national sensation and made the fragile sound of Baker's horn emblematic of an entire "cool" attitude.
In 1953, Baker began a recording and performing relationship with pianist Russ Freeman that solidified his status as a major jazz star: One key to this success was Baker's singing, which sustained the vulnerability of his trumpet work.  A growing number of drug incidents soon began to overshadow Baker's playing, yet somehow, Baker was able to keep his music under control.
While the cool label became a Baker trademark, he was in fact a modern trumpeter who could play with the hardest boppers, as several recordings made in New York during the late Fifties demonstrate. After living in Europe for a while, Baker returned to the US in 1964, where he made several fine albums with George Coleman and Kirk Lightsey. Then his career seemed permanently ended in 1968, when Baker lost his teeth in an altercation with other junkies in San Francisco. He stopped playing for two years, then resurfaced again in New York in 1973, where he renewed his recording career: Much of his final decade was spent in Europe, often working with a trio completed by guitar and bass. Prior to his mysterious death in Amsterdam, where he felt out of a hotel window, Baker was the subject of Bruce Weber's film Let's Get Lost, a fascinating study of hero worship and self-destruction.

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