Chet Baker是一个天才演奏家。他虽然未写过一首乐曲，但他的创意却完全流露在他对乐器的驾御和对音乐的演绎中。他的演奏常常能为一首乐曲注入灵性，令它出现全新面貌，为听者带来前所未有的感染力。
Chet Baker是一位出色的冷爵士小号演奏家,同时也是一位优秀的爵士歌手,他用极具魅力的表达方式掩饰了他天生嗓音条件的不足.Baker英俊的外形酷似一名电影明星,然而他却在50年代中期染上了吸毒,从此毒瘾一直伴随着他的后半生。
Chet Baker自幼学习音乐,1952年他退伍在西海岸曾与Charlie Parker有过接触,随后他便加入了”Gerry Mulligan四重奏”小组,这支小组很快便在爵士乐坛建立了自己的声望.当Mulligan因携带毒品被捕后,Baker与钢琴演奏家Russ Free一起创建了自己的四重奏小组.1955年,Baker在欧洲各国进行了巡演活动,他也因此在小号演奏和演唱两个方面引起了乐迷的广泛关注,正在Baker事业处于急速上升阶段,他却于1960年被关进了意大利监狱,为了强行戒毒,Baker被敲下了所有的牙齿,这样一来他也只能暂时告别乐坛。
70年代,Baker悄悄重返乐坛,他在这段期间过着类似游牧式的生活,他频繁往返于欧洲各国,.Baker始终无法摆脱毒瘾,虽然在此期间他小号演奏技艺不断提高并且录制了大量的专辑,但论其艺术价值却毫无建树。
1988年5月13日,Chet Baker在阿姆斯特丹坠楼身亡,他的突然去世令爵士乐坛震惊和惋惜,曾有人声称:Chet Baker本可以成为像Charlie Parker那样伟大的演奏家,但毒品把他引向了另一方。
我也从不相信毒品会创造艺术,他只会使你脆弱的神经在兴奋中得以麻木。
1990年奥斯卡金像奖纪录短片提名名单当中，赫然出现一部以一位JAZZ乐小喇叭手一生坎坷的纪实，这部名为“Let’s Get Lost”的短片，正是Chet Baker本人的部分写照。他和早期乐手一样沉醉在音乐和酒的世界，并且在成名后只身前往欧洲，追求自己的音乐艺术，他曾被誉为“伟大的白人希望”（G reat White Hope），但多年的药瘾使他生活极不正常。幽暗的小喇叭声与低吟回荡的嗓音，就像那个失落的年代，不知经过了多少年仍旧叫人怀念。
听Chet Baker的音乐要把灯光调低，要有一瓶威士忌陪伴身边，要戴上耳筒；唱片在沙沙走动，你会听见他说，Let"s Get Lost。让我们一起迷失，迷失在幽幽的小喇叭声中，迷失在一个心碎浪漫主义者的浅吟低叹之中。
Chet Baker，一个俊朗迷人的美男子，一个爵士乐历史上的早熟天才。在Bruce Weber为他拍摄的传记电影《让我们一起迷失》中，我们可以看到他的一生。他最早从军队中学到音乐常识，退伍后在Be-bop鼻Charlie Parker的乐团中作过短暂的停留，23岁时，和低音色士风手Mulligan一起录下Cool Jazz著名的演奏《我可笑的情人》(My Funny Valentine)，凭此曲一炮而红。这首老曲子在Chet Baker发挥之下重新焕发了生命，它简单而含蓄，几乎是不动声色地，但却深深渗入你的听觉之中。成名后的Chet Baker组成四人爵士乐团走遍美国各地；六十年代后，又只身前往欧洲，把Cool Jazz的精髓加入更多的欧洲和声，令爵士乐在欧洲获得更大的推广。Chet Baker就象是一颗燃烧著的流星，散发著令人不可思议的能量，带著一种致命的速度向神秘不可知的地方冲去。1988年5月13日，有人在阿姆斯特丹发现他堕楼身亡，一代爵士大师就这样撒手尘寰。
电影《让我们一起迷失》在Chet Baker死前三个星期拍完，Chet Baker曾说拍摄过程给他带来了一段难忘的欢乐时光，但他还未来得及看到这部电影就悄然而别了。1990年，这部电影获得奥斯卡金像奖最佳纪录短片提名。
Chet Baker是一个自我主义者。他沉湎在自己的生命与音乐之中，对周遭世界置若罔闻。他的演奏和歌唱都是以自我为中心，就象是一个内敛式的磁场，听者只能被他的音乐吸进去，而他从不迁就听者。他的小喇叭就象一个街头失意的醉汉，在感觉的世界中到处游走，不时迸发出一些即兴的火花，幽暗低回，带著一种令人落泪的宿命感。就象那个失落的年代一样，Chet Baker的音乐迷失在岁月的隧道里，但至今我们仍听得见他醉人的回声。
冷爵士又称西海岸爵士,它形成于40年代末50年代初,此种曲风结合了”波普”爵士和”摇摆乐”中某些被忽略的音乐元素.这种音乐的旋律委婉柔和,编曲严谨声部规整.虽然冷爵士不具备煽情特质,但它却有着广泛的群众基矗
Chet Baker是一个天才演奏家。他虽然未写过一首乐曲，但他的创意却完全流露在他对乐器的驾御和对音乐的演绎中。他的演奏常常能为一首乐曲注入灵性，令它出现全新面貌，为听者带来前所未有的感染力。
Chet Baker是位小喇叭手，更是不可多得的歌手。他从军中习得音乐常识，退伍后在Charlie Parker的乐团中短暂停留。1952年和低音萨克斯风手Mulligan在一起，录下了Cool Jazz著名的演奏“My Funny Valentine”。这首老曲调在他们的演绎下重新拾回创作活力，含蓄又单纯的气质，使Chet Baker立刻一炮而红。他的名字几乎被人们像崇拜小喇叭大师Bix Beiderbecke一样的称呼着，这也是才23岁就成名的Chet Baker的最大致命伤。成名后，Chet Baker自组四重奏乐团走遍美国各地。他的独奏部分深受同时期Miles Davis的影响，以单调不乏味，简洁却不无聊的音调，让人在聆赏时不知觉地忘掉所有的紧张情绪。虽然也有人认为这种强调气氛和感觉的演奏方式，有过分自以为是与不理会听众反应的造作，但是从另一个角度来看，它却又具备了J AZZ乐献身创作的直觉动机，因此孰是孰非就见仁见智了。六十年代以后，一直到1988年5月13日Chet Baker去世为止，他个人把演奏中心移往欧洲，并且把Cool Jazz的精髓加入更多的欧洲和声，使大部分欧洲人更热爱JAZZ乐。由于Chet Baker后半生都只在美国做短暂停留，除了录音和表演，他的动向一直是个迷。一般人的猜测，Chet不予理会，他只管自己的音乐创作。此外，他歌声中轻飘的气质，和低沉的嗓音，几乎让所有的女性不由自主地陶醉其中，其男性的魅力可见一斑。如果一定要对Chet Baker挑剔，只能说他本人几乎未曾写过一首曲子。但是当他演奏那些令人永难忘记的音乐时，即使是别人的作品却又成为他个人的新创作。C het Baker在即兴演奏时把自己的理念转换成音符，就像所有的乐手一样，他在演出时就完成了创作，不管他是唱出来或轻声地奏出曲调都是最美的艺术。
Chet Baker was a primary exponent of the West Coast school of cool jazz in the early and mid-50s. As a trumpeter, he had a generally restrained, intimate playing style and he attracted attention beyond jazz for his photogenic looks and singing. But his career was marred by drug addiction.
Bakers father, Chesney Henry Baker,Sr., was a guitarist who was forced to turn to other work during the Depression; his mother, Vera (Moser) Baker, worked in a perfumery. The family moved from Oklahoma to Glendale, CA, in 1940. As a child, Baker sang at amateur competitions and in a church choir. Before his adolescence, his father brought home a trombone for him, then replaced it with a trumpet when the larger instrument proved too much for him. He had his first formal training in music at Glendale Junior High School, but would play largely by ear for the rest of his life. In 1946, when he was only 16 years old, he dropped out of high school and his parents signed papers allowing him to enlist in the army; he was sent to Berlin, Germany, where he played in the 298th Army Band. After his discharge in 1948, he enrolled at El Camino College in Los Angeles, where he studied theory and harmony while playing in jazz clubs, but he quit college in the middle of his second year. He re-enlisted in the army in 1950 and became a member of the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco. But he also began sitting in at clubs in the city and he finally obtained a second discharge to become a professional jazz musician.
Baker initially played in Vido Mussos band, then with Stan Getz. (The first recording featuring Baker is a performance of Out of Nowhere that comes from a tape of a jam session made on March 24, 1952, and was released on the Fresh Sound Records LP Live at the Trade Winds.) His break came quickly, when, in the spring of 1952, he was chosen at an audition to play a series of West Coast dates with Charlie Parker, making his debut with the famed saxophonist at the Tiffany Club in Los Angeles on May 29, 1952. That summer, he began playing in the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, a group featuring only baritone sax, trumpet, bass, and drums — no piano — that attracted attention during an engagement at the Haig nightclub and through recordings on the newly formed Pacific Jazz Records (later known as World Pacific Records), beginning with the 10 LP Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which featured Bakers famous rendition of My Funny Valentine.
The Gerry Mulligan Quartet lasted for less than a year, folding when its leader went to jail on a drug charge in June 1953. Baker went solo, forming his own quartet, which initially featured Russ Freeman on piano, Red Mitchell on bass, and Bobby White on drums, and making his first recording as leader for Pacific Jazz on July 24, 1953. Baker was hailed by fans and critics and he won a number of polls in the next few years. In 1954, Pacific Jazz released Chet Baker Sings, an album that increased his popularity but alienated traditional jazz fans; he would continue to sing for the rest of his career. Acknowledging his chiseled good looks, nearby Hollywood came calling and he made his acting debut in the film Hells Horizon, released in the fall of 1955. But he declined an offer of a studio contract and toured Europe from September 1955 to April 1956. When he returned to the U.S., he formed a quintet that featured saxophonist Phil Urso and pianist Bobby Timmons. Contrary to his reputation for relaxed, laid-back playing, Baker turned to more of a bop style with this group, which recorded the album Chet Baker & Crew for Pacific Jazz in July 1956.
Baker toured the U.S. in February 1957 with the Birdland All-Stars and took a group to Europe later that year. He returned to Europe to stay in 1959, settling in Italy, where he acted in the film Urlatori Alla Sbarra. Hollywood, meanwhile, had not entirely given up on him, at least as a source of inspiration, and in 1960, a fictionalized film biography of his life, All the Fine Young Cannibals, appeared with Robert Wagner in the starring role of Chad Bixby.
Baker had become addicted to heroin in the 1950s and had been incarcerated briefly on several occasions, but his drug habit only began to interfere with his career significantly in the 1960s. He was arrested in Italy in the summer of 1960 and spent almost a year and a half in jail. He celebrated his release by recording Chet Is Back! for RCA in February 1962. (It has since been reissued as The Italian Sessions and as Somewhere Over the Rainbow.) Later in the year, he was arrested in West Germany and expelled to Switzerland, then France, later moving to England in August 1962 to appear as himself in the film The Stolen Hours, which was released in 1963. He was deported from England to France because of a drug offense in March 1963. He lived in Paris and performed there and in Spain over the next year, but after being arrested again in West Germany, he was deported back to the U.S. He returned to America after five years in Europe on March 3, 1964, and played primarily in New York and Los Angeles during the mid-60s, having switched temporarily from trumpet to flügelhorn. In the summer of 1966, he suffered a severe beating in San Francisco that was related to his drug addiction. The incident is usually misdated and frequently exaggerated in accounts of his life, often due to his own unreliable testimony. It is said, for example, that all his teeth were knocked out, which is not the case, though one tooth was broken and the general deterioration of his teeth led to his being fitted with dentures in the late 60s, forcing him to retrain his embouchure. The beating was not the cause of the decline in his career during this period, but it is emblematic of that decline. By the end of the 60s, he was recording and performing only infrequently and he stopped playing completely in the early 70s.
Regaining some control over his life by taking methadone to control his heroin addiction (though he remained an addict), Baker eventually mounted a comeback that culminated in a prominent New York club engagement in November 1973 and a reunion concert with Gerry Mulligan at Carnegie Hall in November 1974 that was recorded and released by Epic Records. By the mid-70s, Baker was able to return to Europe and he spent the rest of his life performing there primarily, with occasional trips to Japan and periods back in the U.S., though he had no permanent residence. He attracted the attention of rock musicians, with whom he occasionally performed, for example adding trumpet to Elvis Costellos recording of his anti-Falklands War song Shipbuilding in 1983. In 1987, photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber undertook a documentary film about Baker. The following year, Baker died in a fall from a hotel window in Amsterdam after taking heroin and cocaine. Webers film, Lets Get Lost, premiered in September 1988 to critical acclaim and earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1997, Bakers unfinished autobiography was published under the title As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir and the book was optioned by Miramax for a film adaptation.
Bakers drug addiction caused him to lead a disorganized and peripatetic life, his constant need for cash requiring him to accept many ill-advised recording offers, while his undependability prevented him from making long-term commitments to record labels. As a result, his discography is extensive and wildly uneven.