Book Review: Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, by James Gavin (2002)

The paperback cover of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, by James Gavin, 2002. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

The jazz trumpeter Chet Baker presents an excellent argument for separating the artist from their art. Baker was gifted with a haunting romantic lyricism in his trumpet playing and singing. However, Chet Baker was also an absolutely terrible human being, as you’ll learn if you read James Gavin’s excellent 2002 biography of Baker, Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker.  

Baker was a heroin addict for the better part of 30 years, and he also chronically abused prescription drugs as well. How he made it to 58 years old is a mystery to me. Baker’s drug addiction was at least partly responsible for the awful way he treated everyone in his life, as he basically was only interested in getting money in order to feed his drug addiction.  

I started reading Deep in a Dream shortly after watching the fascinating 1988 documentary Let’s Get Lost, photographer Bruce Weber’s love letter to Baker’s youthful beauty that also pulls the rug out from under Baker’s cool mystique. About 250 pages in, I put Deep in a Dream down for a long time before finally returning to it and finishing it. That’s no criticism of James Gavin, who did a superb job of documenting Baker’s life and interviewing many, many people who knew him. But Baker was just such a terrible person that I tired of reading about him. I try to look on the bright side and attempt to find the good qualities of people. But with Chet Baker really the only positive thing I can say about him is “He played the trumpet beautifully.” And that’s the paradox of Chet Baker: how could someone who was such a toxic human being also produce beautiful, emotional music? It’s a mystery.  

Baker’s behavior leads me to the conclusion that he was probably a sociopath. There’s nothing good I can say about him: he was awful (and physically abusive) to the women in his life, he was a terrible father, he did no favors for his friends. You can open Deep in a Dream to pretty much any page and find a story of Baker doing something awful.  

I learned a lot of things from Deep in a Dream. Baker lost his left front tooth as a kid, just as he was beginning to learn the trumpet, and he didn’t get it replaced until much, much later in life. I’m amazed he was able to get the correct embouchure to play the trumpet at all. Baker played entirely by ear, and he rarely practiced. “My Funny Valentine” became Baker’s signature song, but he didn’t know the song the first time he recorded it with Gerry Mulligan in 1952—bassist Carson Smith had to teach the song to the rest of the band. (p.58)  

Baker shot to fame in the early 1950’s, in no small part due to his high cheekboned handsomeness. Miles Davis was skeptical of Baker’s talent, as he thought that a decent part of Baker’s renown was due to his handsome good looks and his palatability to white audiences. However, Davis had the last laugh as he signed to a major label, Columbia Records, in 1955. Even by that early date, there was enough skepticism about Baker’s drug use and erratic personality that no major label would touch him. Baker eventually made albums for Verve, CTI, and A&M in the 1970’s, but the fact that he only recorded one album for each label says a lot about his personality. However, Baker remained a cult figure in Europe throughout his life, and despite all of the bridges he burned, he was still able to find gigs and record for tiny European record labels. Baker eschewed royalties in favor of quick cash up front—all the better to score drugs with.  

Gavin chronicles Baker’s life exhaustively, from his rise to fame as part of the West Coast jazz scene, to Rikers Island prison, where Baker did four months for a drug conviction in 1959, to Baker’s tabloid fame in Italy, where he was arrested and served 18 months for drugs in 1960-61, to the late 1960’s, when Baker lost many of his upper teeth, either due to neglect or a beating from drug dealers, and had to re-learn how to play the trumpet again. And on and on, as Baker went across the world, playing his same repertoire of romantic songs and taking drugs.  

Partly because he recorded for so many small European labels during the 1970’s and 1980’s, Baker’s discography is a hopelessly muddled mess. The records Baker made as part of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet on Pacific Jazz/World Pacific in the 1950’s still make for enjoyable listening, 70 years after they were recorded. Baker also made successful vocal records for Pacific Jazz, including Chet Baker Sings, where you can find his famous vocal version of “My Funny Valentine.” Baker’s voice probably falls into the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Baker sang in an extremely high tenor, so high that sometimes it’s difficult to ascertain whether the voice is male or female, which just added to his sensitive heartthrob appeal. Chet Baker & Crew is one of my favorite albums of Baker’s on Pacific Jazz, and it features many songs written by members of the West Coast jazz scene. Baker became so troublesome to Pacific Jazz that they sold/loaned his contract to Riverside, a small New York City jazz label. (Riverside was home to some big jazz stars like Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, and Wes Montgomery.) Baker made some good records for Riverside, like Chet Baker in New York, on which Baker embraces comparisons to Miles Davis as he tackles “Solar,” written by Davis, and “When Lights Are Low,” another song associated with Miles. Baker also played with longtime Davis sidemen Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. During his tenure with Riverside, Baker recorded what I would consider to be the ultimate Chet Baker album, simply titled Chet. Released in 1959, it’s an album of intimate late-night ballads that could easily double as terrific make out music. I’m also a fan of the 5 albums Baker recorded for Prestige Records in 1965. That music has been reissued on 3 CDs, On a Misty Night, Lonely Star, and Stairway to the Stars. Baker plays the fluegelhorn on these sessions, giving his sound a softer tone. Many of Baker’s records from the 1970’s and 1980’s were live recordings, and they vary greatly in sound quality and performance. 

While Baker was able to charm and con many people, one who was not fooled by him was Diane Mitchell, the wife of Leo Mitchell, who drummed with Baker in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Diane said of Baker, “I felt the evil force the minute I met him.” (p.292) Others were not so perceptive.  

If you want to know more about the life and art of Chet Baker, Deep in a Dream is the definitive biography of the troubled trumpeter. Just be warned that it’s not a pleasant journey.