Product Description

From his emergence in the 1950s - when an uncannily beautiful young man from Oklahoma appeared in the West Coast and became, seemingly overnight, the prince of 'cool' jazz - until his violent, drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker lived a life that has become an American myth. Sexy, angelic, needy and forbidding all at once, the so-called 'James Dean of Jazz' struck a note of menace in the staid fifties. In this first major biography, the story of Baker's demise is finally revealed. So is the truth behind his tormented childhood. Behind Baker's icy facade lay something ominous, unspoken. The mystery drove both sexes crazy. But his only real romance, apart from music, was with drugs. Gavin brilliantly recreates the life of a man whose journey from golden promise to eventual destruction mirrored America's fall from post-war innocence - but whose music has never lost the power to enchant and seduce us.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #250319 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
'The definitive biography' Mail on Sunday

From the Publisher
The wild ride of the most romanticized icon in jazz, thrillingly recounted in this first major biography.

About the Author
James Gavin is the author of Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret and a frequent contributor to the New York Times and other publications. He lives in New York.

Customer Reviews

Definitive story of the James Dean of jazz
Although the story of Chet Baker, one of the most distinctive and original jazz trumpeters of all time, has been told before, for instance in Baker's own memoir As Though I Had Wings, in Bruce Weber's documentary film Let's Get Lost, and in the biography by Jeroen de Valk, Deep In A Dream by James Gavin offers the most comprehensive study so far. The book works on a number of levels: not only is it an in-depth jazz biography, it is, possibly more importantly, a classic study of the gaping chasm between fantasy and reality, certainly regarding the early part of Baker's career. There is no doubt that Baker was an exceptional jazz musician, but when he became a star at the age of twenty three, the "James Dean of Jazz", this had more to do with his image than his musical ability. The image was largely a result of the work of West Coast photographer William Claxton, who had an epiphany as he watched Baker's face emerge in his photographic developing tray. Claxton felt that he had never known the meaning og the word "photogenic" until he photographed Baker, who in reality " ... Had one tooth missing, so he looked a little dopey ... but then you put him in front of a camera and he became a movie star." When people looked at Baker's pictures on the covers of his records, as author Gavin says, "They projected all kinds of fantasies onto him. They imagined a wounded child in need of mothering, a seductive devil luring them into trouble, a dark prophet of doom, or the ultimate soulful male." Baker's record producer found in a marketing survey that most of Baker's fans were girls who were interested in his wispy ballad singing, not his jazz playing.Baker fascinated his musician colleagues, who had to practise, because his talent emerged seemingly out of nowhere, with no work. In fact, Baker lacked the capacity to work at anything. This farmer's boy from Oklahoma sought only instant gratification and a way of blanking out anything he could not cope with, while showing no concern for anyone else. A serious heroin addict throughout his adult life, his overriding need was to acquire the money to pay for the next fix, and so his life was an endless round of gigs, mainly in Europe. Married three times, father of four children, involved in many relationships, Baker could be physically abusive to his partners, who , in a classically co-dependent way, found it difficult to extricate themselves from his hold over them. Interestingly, Gavin highlights the fact that throughout his life Baker also attracted a following of male hero-worshippers. In the last years of his life, Baker was earning around $300,000 a year and had recorded over 150 albums. Yet he never had a bank account or a permanent home, preferring to live in hotels or stay with friends. He died aged fifty eight in a fall from the window of an Amsterdam hotel. James Gavin has written a book that, while often depressing in terms of the facts of the narrative, compels the reader to keep turning the pages. It would be difficult to encounter a study of a creative personality showing a more extreme gulf between the beauty of the art and the squalor of the life.

Chet lovers beware!
Though this book is essential reading for all Chet heads, you will need a strong stomach to swallow the portrait Mr.Gavin serves up. It's the opposite of the hagiographic line taken by his Dutch biographer, but in purporting to debunk the myth Gavin creates his own, that of a near-psychopathic soulless demon who just happened to have an inexplicable musical talent. Glorying in all the most sordid deails, this hatchet job leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Gavin is a knowledgable guy and presumably was attrcted to Chet through the music and the image in the first place, so perhaps this is another case of "each man kills the thing he loves". Perhaps it's appropriate to quote Wilde since Chet did somewhat resemble that of Dorian Gray, with Claxton's photos remaining angelically youthful whilst on his own face were etched all the ravages of his life.