Chet Baker spent most of the sixties in Europe, recording infrequently and getting in to trouble frequently. He made some very notable recordings in the early part of the decade (such as the Prestige recordings from 1965), sometimes switching to flugelhorn. But the late sixties found him recording some dreadful music, and eventually he had given up playing after losing most of his upper teeth. Years of drug use had taken their toll on Chet's teeth, and in July of 1966 he was attacked, and his teeth were damaged further.and cites the YouTube clips from the Japanese The Complete Tokyo Concert laser disc for examples, such as My Funny Valentine, as proof his powers were improved rather than impaired.posted by y2karl at 3:35 PM on March 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
In the early 1970's, Chet Baker began to learn how to play with dentures. Beginning in 1974, Chet recorded and toured regularly, mostly in Europe. Despite the effects of age, drugs and false teeth, he actually improved in those later years. Chet's performances in the eighties were unpredictable. Sometimes he would show up and perform the best gig of his career. Sometimes he would show up and perform poorly. Sometimes he wouldn't even show up.
Chet Baker's turbulent life came to a bizarre and tragic end on May 13, 1988 in Amsterdam. Chet fell from the open window of his hotel room, hitting the concrete two stories below.
It can be argued that Chet was at his musical peak when he died in 1988. Indeed some of his best recordings came from 1986 and 1987.
...The enduring fascination of “Let’s Get Lost,” the reason it remains powerful even now, when every value it represents is gone, is that it’s among the few movies that deal with the mysterious, complicated emotional transactions involved in the creation of pop culture — and with the ambiguous process by which performers generate desire. Mr. Baker isn’t so much the subject of this picture as its pretext: He’s the front man for Mr. Weber’s meditations on image making and its discontents.posted by y2karl at 8:27 AM on March 12, 2012
If you want the true story of Chet Baker, you’d do better to look up James Gavin’s superb, harrowing 2002 biography, “Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker,” where you can also find, in the words of a pianist named Hal Galper, perhaps the most perceptive review of Mr. Weber’s slippery movie. “I though it was great,” Mr. Galper says, “because it was so jive. Everybody’s lying, including Chet. You couldn’t have wanted a more honest reflection of him.” That’s “Let’s Get Lost,” to the life: the greatest jive movie, or maybe the jivest great movie, ever made.A Jazzman So Cool You Want Him Frozen at His Peak
By Terrence Rafferty, New York Times, June 3, 2007
...Girlfriends, colleagues, his estranged wife and mother remain dazzled, even as they reel off the ways he had let them down. Far less starry-eyed is Ruth Young, the brainy, acid-tongued jazz singer who lived with Baker from 1973 through 1982. Mr. Weber outfitted her to look like a jazz groupie of the 50's, with dangling earrings, a blonde chignon and a skimpy black cocktail dress. But she slices through the myth by quoting one of Baker's favorite songs, ''My Foolish Heart,'' about the ''line between love and fascination'' that an infatuated lover can't see.Chet Baker: The Monster In The Celebrity Machine by James Gavin
''Love and fascination: you said it, baby,'' remarks Ms. Young. ''That's the mystique. But that isn't necessarily real. And that's what takes a long, long time to figure out.''
...Even after months of dealing with Baker's drug problems and demands for money, Mr. Weber was still spellbound. Before their last interview, Baker had made no secret that he was out of drugs and in severe withdrawal. On camera, Mr. Weber tells him how hard it is to see him looking so ill.
''Well, Bruce, you want me to level with you and tell you the truth,'' Baker says, annoyed. ''But in doing that, it only creates pain on your part.'' Having to live up to the fantasies of others, Baker says, ''is a big drag.'' It was almost as if this object of so many daydreams saw himself more clearly than anyone around him.
Later, he stated he started 'using' when he was in big professional and personal problems, which was untrue. He was already a junkie at the height of his fame.Jerome De Valk, Chet Baker biographer
My tastes had moved forward about a decade, and now I was fascinated by the 1950s, which seemed so cool and sophisticated to me at my young age. The gigantic repression of that time, sexual and otherwise, gradually began to interest me too. At the time, I owned only two Chet Baker albums. One of them, which may still be my favorite, is Chet, a set of instrumental ballads with Bill Evans. I thought it was the best "make out" music I had ever heard, even though I hadn't started making out yet! I found this music to be incredibly slow and sexy and hot - not cool, as everyone called him. When Chet made that album in the late '50s, he was virtually a gutter junkie, and that surely helped break down his cool veneer. But I still wasn't a great aficionado, I must admit. I knew the cliches of his life story: that he was a beautiful but tarnished golden boy from the 50's with an androgynous singing voice that people debated about violently, and that a lot of people didn't take him seriously as a trumpeter, either. I had a vague sense that he was extremely out of favor in the United States and had become as famous for his drug habit as he was for his music.James Gavin, Chet Baker biographer
...In Norman Mailer's 1957 essay called "The White Negro," you point out how Mailer "glorified the American existentialist - the hipster, who understood America was headed for doom," and whose response to that was, in Mailer's words, "to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey with the rebellious imperatives of the self." Could it be said this was Baker's epitaph?
Absolutely! Except that I don't think that Chet Baker had any grand, worldly scheme in mind. This was a man who, as far as I know, didn't read the newspaper, didn't watch the TV news, who only cared about getting what he needed. I don't think he thought of himself as any kind of revolutionary; he just wanted to escape from pressure, from responsibility, maybe from his own anger. I think he wanted the love and approval of his father and never got it. I think he longed to escape the pressure his mother had put upon him from the day he was born -- this perfect little angel child who was supposed to solve all her problems. Near the end of their relationship, Chet said to Ruth Young in a rage, "Don't hang your life up on me!" A lot of people had hung their lives up on Chet Baker, and he couldn't stand it. Why wouldn't he have wanted to stay as high as he could? But let us not forget that, although Chet was called weak all his life, he was very strong, because how many people have survived such a life as long as he did? He made it to 58, which is a miracle. There are many times he should have died. I really dig the fact that he checked out only when he was ready to. He probably could have lasted a few years longer, but he decided it was time to bale. I wouldn't call this weakness.
...The Europeans revered Chet at a time when America had tossed him aside, with Chet's cooperation, of course. Here in the States in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, Chet was looked down upon as a burn-out who had destroyed his gifts, thrown his life away. There was a very nice review of my book in the Toronto Star. The subtitle reads, "What a waste his life was." That was and is the American attitude toward Chet. It really annoys me, as it did him, because how can you call a guy a waste when he's recorded 150 albums and almost never stopped playing? That attitude reveals something quite unflattering about America. In Europe, Chet felt embraced, because most people didn't treat him with disapproval -- even when he deserved it. I think it was the pianist Enrico Pieranunzi who said in my book that in Italy, Chet was looked upon as a great artist with a great problem. Europe is filled with people who proudly view themselves as patrons of the arts. Helping a needy artist is a noble act there. Even when Chet was at his frailest -- especially when he was at his frailest -- the Europeans were extremely touched by the pain he revealed so nakedly. Even if he had only tatters of his former technique, this outpouring of the soul touched everyone's hearts. The Europeans loved him for it....how can you call a guy a waste when he's recorded 150 albums and almost never stopped playing?
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posted by cherryflute at 10:11 AM on March 11, 2012