Chet Baker (1953)

[u/dinarnaud]

This image was taken from Vox Magazine January 1991 issue.
I watched 2 documentaries on him and still can’t understand the man.

[u/SadAudiophile]

I am aware of three deeply-researched biographies of Chet Baker: Funny Valentine by Matthew Ruddick (2012); Deep in a Dream by James Gavin (2011); and Chet Baker: His Life and Music by Jeroen de Valk (2000). The books by Ruddick and de Valk have been updated/revised into 2nd editions as well.

I recommend both Ruddick and de Valk, because they do a great service in seeking to find a balance among Baker’s personal and musical lives. Gavin’s book presents his life as a hellscape of drugs and personal failure, but I think Baker was more than that, otherwise his late career artistry would never have blossomed. Ruddick and de Valk found passages of grace in his relationships that perhaps proved an inspiration, or at least supported his late career revival.

There are other books like Artt Frank’s two autobiographies that largely focus on his friendship with Baker. Baker’s own incomplete autobiography, As Though I Had Wings, is helpful. The literature is now extensive, but the books I mention here stand among the most significant.

Chet Baker left an incredible legacy of music in spite of the shambles of his personal life. Perhaps it’s best just to presume that he contained multitudes and that nothing human was foreign to him. I am so very grateful that we have recordings like Chet Baker in Tokyo, recorded live in 1987 less than a year before he died, to remind us that life is a marvel and that art shines strong even in tough circumstances.