Listen to Chet Baker, now is the time.
30 years ago, on May 13, 1988, one of the geniuses of jazz Chet Baker jumped out of the window of his hotel in Amsterdam. He was found with a broken head and so much heroin and cocaine in the blood that, most likely, he would not have survived that day without that.
He was the face of Cool-Jazzman, the first white who was mistaken for his black boppers, and a man who was born too early to become a punk. The more dissonance causes his music - the purest, full of youth and flawless.
Chet Baker was an icon of cool jazz - a direction that was the answer and challenge to the Eastern coast jazzmen-boppers. They adored bright, loud, unexpected, good jazz in their opinion should be like sex - full of emotions, ecstatic and exhausting. However, on the west coast there was a completely different school - the very cool.
Cool-Jazzman should be detached, pretending that he does not care about the audience and the music itself. His jazz is cool, calm, detached and cool. In addition, Chet Baker was the embodiment of this philosophy.
It is said that once in a conversation between two geniuses of bebop, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the first one said to the second: “Look, Dizzy, a boy appeared on the west bank to eat you!”.
In a sense, it did. Chet showed all the signs of a young genius. He almost did not understand the notes - he remembered everything by ear with the accuracy of a tape recorder. He played every time like the last, which, in general, was true - he almost daily brought himself to an overdose and remained miraculously alive. As it should be in a tragic story, the love of music was born from the disgusting prose of life. Baker's father was a musician and an alcoholic who often raised his hand to his mother and rolled up tantrums. However, he also presented Chet with a pipe that will make him world famous.
Chet served as a trumpeter in the army, playing in the ruins of Berlin in 1946, trying to make a regimental musician's career, but then jazz appeared, and jazzmen began to like girls more than warriors did. The choice was obvious. Chet tried his hand at new music and it turned out that he simply had no competitors on the west coast. He became popular, fans followed him with a whole crowd, and heroin had not yet turned him into a wreck.
However, Chet Baker, even in its glory, turned out to be out of this world. He did not start bank accounts, he had no property. Suddenly finding himself without money for a drink, he could sell his own musical instruments. Even at the peak of fame, not to mention the darker times.
Once, his front teeth were knocked out during a fight with a draggier, and Chet just went to work for a dressing - he could not play without teeth. Having accumulated at the dentist and having taken medical treatment, Baker immediately went to give concerts again. In his inappropriateness to life, he could only argue with Thelonious Monk, who could not tie a scarf without the help of his wife.
In his youth, Chet was a real handsome man, but the heroin quickly aged Baker, and by 40, he looked like a real wreck. However, he played, and all was waiting for a reason to die young. Reason did not tuck, and then with obvious delay he threw himself out of the window. From the second floor, the height of which was enough for him to commit suicide. He was 59 years old, he, it seems, was no longer completely sane, but he was still considered Cool-Jazzman.