The 2015 film Born to be Blue starred Ethan Hawke as the talented, troubled trumpet player Chet Baker. How do you make another movie about a self-destructive musician with addiction issues? Good question. Born to be Blue changed things up by starting off with Baker playing himself in a biopic, circa 1966. The movie also stars Carmen Ejogo as Jane, an actress who is playing Baker's girlfriend in the biopic. Of course, she ends up falling for Baker off-screen as well.
Born to be Blue shows Baker's attempt to come back from a brutal assault by drug dealers, who smashed his teeth. Now fitted with dentures, Baker has to learn how to play the trumpet again. Dick Bock visits Baker in the hospital. Bock is the President of Pacific Jazz Records, where Baker made many of his most famous records during the 1950's. He asks Jane if anyone has come to visit or called on the telephone. The answer is no, and he explains to Jane that Baker has ruined every relationship in his life, and he cautions her about remaining in a relationship with Baker.
I appreciated Bock's speech to Jane. I've read a biography of Chet Baker; I've watched the great documentary Let's Get Lost. Chet Baker was a terrible human being. The only redeeming quality Chet Baker possessed was the ability to play the trumpet beautifully. Baker is the perfect poster child for separating the artist from the art. Baker's art was amazing: he created beautiful, haunting music. Yet the person who created this beauty was a dark, twisted soul: a sociopath who was addicted to heroin for the better part of thirty years and only cared about getting high. That such beauty could come out of such a damaged person is a mystery I can't explain.
Hawke perfectly portrays Baker's odd combination of dopey naivete and cold-blooded calculation. It's an excellent performance, and Hawke has the right look for Baker, whose high cheekbones and angelic face gave him the nickname "the James Dean of jazz."
To Baker's credit, he was able to make a comeback in the late 1960's. Maybe that was the finest thing he ever did, his shining hour. As the movie shows, Baker was off drugs as he learned the trumpet again. But he was never fully able to kick his heroin addiction, and we know all too well what happens after his successful comeback at Birdland in the movie: two more decades of drugs, nonstop gigging, with death coming from a fall out of an Amsterdam hotel window.
I enjoyed Born to be Blue, and the excellent performances from Hawke and Ejogo. But my problem with the movie is that the trumpet playing in the movie was performed by Kevin Turcotte, not Chet Baker. I'm not trying to slam Kevin Turcotte; his trumpet playing is great. But Chet Baker had a specific tone and sound, and I knew from hearing five notes in the movie that the trumpet playing wasn't Chet Baker. I don't know if it was simply too expensive for the filmmakers to license Baker's performances, or if Baker's estate didn't allow his recordings to be used. But the impact of the music is lessened because we don't get to hear Chet Baker's playing. So it goes.
Born to be Blue is still well worth checking out for fans of jazz and Chet Baker.
