Featured In
ALBUMLove for Sale (Ornithology Remix) - SingleChet Baker
Albums by Chet Baker
ALBUMChet on PoetryChet Baker
ALBUMBlue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in HollandChet Baker
ALBUMLate Night Jazz (Deluxe Edition) [feat. Philip Catherine]Chet Baker
ALBUMChet Baker Meets Space Jazz Trio - Little Girl BlueChet Baker
ALBUMSilence: Italy 1987Chet Baker
ALBUMHaig '53 - The Other Piano Less QuartetChet Baker & Stan Getz
ALBUMThe Legacy, Vol. 4: Oh You Crazy MoonChet Baker
ALBUMQuintessence, Vol. 2Chet Baker & Stan Getz Quartet
ALBUMLonely StarChet Baker
ALBUMOn a Misty NightChet Baker
Artist Playlists
Chet Baker Essentials
The archetypal tortured jazz artist.
Chet Baker: Deep Cuts
Reinterpretations and late-career collabs from the trumpeter.
Chet Baker: Chill
Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
Artist Biography
Trumpeter and singer Chet Baker’s father was a professional guitarist who gave up the instrument to support his family during the Great Depression.
∙ In 1946, Baker dropped out of school at age 16 to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he played trumpet in military bands.
∙ Even before he made his first album as a bandleader, he had already won the DownBeat poll as the best trumpet player in jazz—at age 24.
∙ Along with Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and Dave Brubeck, Baker was one of the principal architects of the West Coast “cool school” jazz scene.
∙ His debut vocal album, Chet Baker Sings—which includes his acclaimed renditions of “My Funny Valentine,” “That Old Feeling,” and “I Fall In Love Too Easily”—was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
∙ Baker’s artistry and movie-star good looks inspired the character Chad Bixby, played by Robert Wagner, in the 1960 film All the Fine Young Cannibals.
∙ Let’s Get Lost, the 1998 Oscar-nominated documentary filmed near the end of his life, chronicles how his remarkable talent had been derailed by drug addiction.
∙ Ethan Hawke played Baker in the 2015 biopic Born to Be Blue.
Hometown
Yale, OK, United States
Genre
Jazz