“Harrowing” and “horrific” are poor substitutes to describe the truncated life & times of jazz legend Chet Baker. Like the book’s subject, James Gavin’s probably-definitive biography is addictive and left me ~ during those times when I had to put it down for more mundane pursuits like work or a doctor’s appointment ~ hungering for the next break when I could plunge back into this irresistible cautionary tale, like Baker himself searching for a vein not yet collapsed or a skin patch free of infection or sores through which to deliver another syringeful of that destructive ecstasy known as heroin, H, smack or horse. (I told you it was horrific.)
Besides thronging with a who’s who of West Coast jazz ~ Hampton Hawes, Art Pepper, Jack Sheldon, Russ Freeman, Bud Shank ~ and greats so well-known they’re immediately recognizable in a single word (Dizzy, Miles, Bird, Trane), Deep In A Dream triumphs even in the early years before angelic good looks, coupled with a born genius for making music, propelled Baker into the stratosphere of fame and celebrity, only to capriciously dash him against the shoals of drug addiction. Like those other poster boys of musical junkiedom Art Pepper and Charlie Parker, Baker astonishes with the crushing schedule and peripatetic existence he managed to keep up, driven by his constant need to hustle enough funds to achieve the next “fix”.
In relating this parable of limitless potential gone horribly awry, Gavin doesn’t short-change us in his appraisal of the angelic music that flowed from Baker’s lips out the bell of his often-hocked trumpet in some of the most pained, introspective and expressive music that at times out-Mileses even Miles. Although his life ended abruptly in the shabbiest of circumstances (jumped/pushed/fell/thrown from a hotel room window in Amsterdam on May 13, 1988 to the street below, where his mangled corpse lay ignored for hours by passersby before being carted off by authorities), his life continues to seduce (the same way his movie-star face & talent would countless women over the course of 58 accelerated years), as evidenced by the documentary Let’s Get Lost (released the same year he died) and 2015’s big-screen biopic Born To Be Blue (with Baker sensitively portrayed by Ethan Hawke).