~ Almost blue
~ All...
I'm sorry.
[man 2] No, Chet, it's OK.
You were fine
[vocalizing]
~ I love you
[man 1] No, no, it's not like that.
- [man 2 strums guitar and hums]
- [man 1 strums guitar and hums]
[man 1] Those chords
are in the first measure.
[instrument thumping]
[man 1 laughs]
What's the problem here?
Jesus.
A lot of fucking attitudes
going on here.
Don't let me get one. One, two, three...
[screaming]
Touch light, man, touch light.
[humming]
Dizzy Gillespie, man.
Dizzy Gillespie was bad.
He was so bad.
- [man] Who?
- Dizzy Gillespie.
When I was a little kid
he was my favourite trumpet player.
I ever tell you that story?
I loved Dizzy 'cause I played trumpet.
Dizzy Gillespie was my favourite guy
in the whole world.
I went to go see him play,
and I snuck backstage.
And he came up to me and put his arm
around me and hugged me close
for like 15 minutes
and just talked to me.
[woman] Chetjust did
a gig in your town.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- He's got a double bill.
- Let's see a jump. Let's see a jump.
- [man] Oh, dude.
- [woman] Whoo!
[laughter]
- [guitar playing]
- [man] Oh, bud.
Wait a minute.
You can't go hatless.
There you go, partner.
What do you think?
- [trumpet playing]
- [man] Once all together like this.
Together with the legs up. Ready?
[woman speaking Italian]
Christano, Christano.
[man mumbling]
Where the hell is this studio?
[man] Everybody has a story
about Chet Baker.
I can't forget the first time
I ever saw him.
It was in New York City,
a long time ago, in the winter.
It was snowing a lot and I was
crossing the street in front of Tiffany,
at 57th and 5th.
He was in an old Chevy convertible
with the top down.
He was stopped at a red light,
and the snow was falling all over.
His hair was all slicked down.
He was listening to Zoot Sims
on the car radio.
Oh, Cherry, he could have cared less
about the snow, just the jazz.
[Cherry laughing] He was bad,
he was trouble and he was beautifuI.
- [woman 2] Do you find life boring?
- Uh...
Under some circumstance
it can be very boring.
Most of the time.
And for a lot of people,
it can be very boring.
Very boring.
Being hungry, being cold...
- Have you experienced that?
- Oh, yeah.
Not too long ago. You never have?
- No.
- Huh.
How fortunate you are.
[man] Where in the hell are we?
[~ Chet Baker: Let's Get Lost]
[man] I've loved these photographs
for so many years.
He was only about 16
when he cut this album.
He's checking out this girI here.
[woman] The girI?
[man] He was copied a lotjust like
James Dean was copied a lot
by every young actor.
And I think that musicians
copied him a great deaI.
- Is this Russ?
- Russ Freeman.
That's Red Mitchell on bass.
That's Johnny MandeI, the arranger.
- Yeah, that's right.
- Bob NeaI on drums.
Carson Smith.
What recording session was this from?
That was the first set of Baker
and Strings for Columbia Records.
That's Zoot Sims, the great Zoot.
That's the old Chippany Club.
That's Charlie Parker
when Charlie Parker was in town.
The legend and he chose Chet
to play with him.
[woman] How did Chet
get to play with Charlie Parker?
[man] Charlie Parker heard him playing
somewhere and said, "I like that kid".
Legend was that Charlie Parker called
Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, said,
"There's a white kid out here giving you
trouble. You better watch out".
[all chuckle]
Dick Bock was a young record producer.
He was recording Chet,
and so I showed him the pictures,
and he hired me to come
and start photographing.
It was Chet Baker's first recording
session, I believe it was his first,
I was photographing him. The
strongest thing I remember about Chet
was that I was attracted to him
photographically and the camera was too.
And Chetjust drew like a magnet,
like he was...
He loved the camera,
but he was very unpretentious.
He didn't know he was doing it.
At least it seemed that way.
I kept taking pictures of him and
forgetting about the rest of the band.
I had to cover the whole thing,
and later that night in the darkroom...
Remember, I'm a young guy
trying to be a photographer.
The film was developed
and I was making enlargements.
The images were coming through,
developing through.
I remember having a very strong feeling,
for the first time,
of what photogenic meant,
or what star quality meant or charisma.
That was a new word in the mid-50's.
I thought, "This guy's got all that
stuff and I discovered him".
[laughing] Photographically.
Well, he always had
wonderfuI looking ladies with him.
[laughing]
He always drove wonderfuI cars,
even when he couldn't afford them.
And he usually had
his dog there, too, wonderfuI dog,
sitting in the recording studio,
which was unique.
You know how it is when you're young.
You think you hear new music,
or you find a new artist
and you discovered them.
[~ Chet Baker: I Remember You]
[woman speaking Italian]
[up-tempo music plays]
[up-tempo music continues]
[music stops]
[man] I was supposed
to play football in Oklahoma.
[man 2]
I was supposed to pick up the horn.
What I'm trippin' is that you came
from Oklahoma and you play horn.
- [man] It doesn't stack up.
- [Baker] It doesn't fit together.
- [man] You got some musicaI family?
- [Baker] My father was a musician.
- Did he teach you how to play?
- [Baker] He didn't teach me.
- You taught yourself?
- [Baker] Pretty much.
You failed your course
on chord progression?
[indistinct]
- Keep swingin'.
- I just made a claim on the pattern.
[man] That's an alternative.
That's not it.
- [laughing]
- Is this in tune?
[piano playing]
You want to take a take on this?
[man] Sure.
Do you like that delivery?
- [man 2] It's nice. It's good.
- All right.
You guys about ready yet? OK. Chetty?
- [man] Let's do it.
- Don't forget the "do wah's".
- All right, here we go.
- [man] I'll wait for you.
- Three and...
- Wait a minute.
Um, let's take... let's just do it.
- You want to rehearse the intro again?
- I think I got it.
OK.
- Three...
- Whenever you're ready, then.
- [man] OK, we're ready.
- Are we rolling in the booth?
Yes, we are.
- Go ahead.
- Hold on a second, wait.
- Are they rolling?
- Yes.
- OK, let's go.
- Three, and...
...four and...
~ Imagination
~ Is funny
~ It makes a cloudy day sunny
~ Makes a bee think of honey
~ Just as I
~ Think of you
[man] Meeting Chet Baker
probably changed my life forever.
I was going to college at the time
and I was promoting a jazz night
at the Haig Club,
a little club off of Wilshire Boulevard.
One night Chet Baker dropped in.
Gerry Mulligan was the
saxophone player that evening.
They hadn't really met.
I think Chet was playing
with Charlie Parker at the Tiffany Club,
which is about four blocks away.
And he just... At the end of the
engagement at that night, at Tiffany,
he just came and sat in,
and it was so fresh and so naturaI.
The naturaI talent. It started
to change the whole picture there.
In fact, the next week
I hired Chet and Gerry to play together.
By the third week they had booked
Red Norvo's trio into the club,
and Red didn't have a piano.
He played with TaI Farlow
and Charlie Mingus on bass and guitar.
He said, "I don't want the piano
on the stage. Store it somewhere".
There was no place. The Haig
was so small. It held 52 people.
The owner, John Bennett,
put it in his apartment.
Gerry said, "It makes no difference.
I can play just as well
without a piano".
So the Gerry Mulligan quartet was born.
~ Imagination is silly
[Bock] Days of hearing
Chet and Gerry at the Haig
were probably some of the greatest
experiences I've ever had in jazz.
I've been producing jazz records
for 40 years now,
and I've produced
some of the greatest musicians,
but I think Chet is
one of the most unique players.
And I got him
at the best time in his life.
He was just a kid. He was 23 years,
22 years of age, just out of the Army.
He hadn't had junk yet.
He was smoking some pot,
but he hadn't gotten into a habit.
So I got the best years and some
of the best music that he ever played.
And it was a thrill.
It wasn't long before Chet
really went past Gerry, in a sense.
He was becoming so bright
in what he was doing
that he had to have his own thing.
And then it caused difficulty,
because Gerry resented the fact
that Chet was no longer
gonna be a sideman...
[indistinct]
...which broke up probably one
of the bestjazz quartets of the day.
At his best I don't think anybody played
any better than Chet Baker on trumpet.
It sounded to me
like he was the history ofjazz.
There was Louis Armstrong,
there was Bix Beiderbecke
and there was Bunny Berigan,
all rolled into one.
He had that spark that Bunny had
and the IyricaI quality
that Bix Beiderbecke had,
yet Chet was always fresh and new.
He never really played cliches.
Sign the back of Imagination.
- [Baker humming]
- [laughter]
[man] I've never heard
anybody sing so soft.
[man 2] He sings soft,
but it keeps going.
Itjust keeps going and going
and stays the same.
[man 1] It sounds like the horn.
[man 2] Like what he played
at the end of that one song. OK.
[tape rewinds]
You're not gonna let me carry your horn?
- No.
- Come on, Chet.
Could be a world champion
by the end of year.
[Chet] You're not gonna come over
and have enchilada, tostada..
- [man] Step aside, please.
- [Baker] Don't change your hair for me.
Not if you care for me.
- [applause]
- Stay, little funny Valentine. Stay.
[drum roll]
[~ Chet Baker: My Funny Valentine]
[Claxton] I must say, the other night
when you brought me in
I hadn't seen him
for at least 15 or 20 years.
I was shocked. I was just stunned that
I didn't know it was the same person
because he's changed so much.
It made me very sad, actually.
But the moment he talked and sang,
and, of course, played his trumpet,
itjust all came back
as sort of a wonderfuI image again.
Then I just forgot about the age
and the change of his looks.
'Cause he sounded so boyish.
I was the same old thing again.
It was wonderfuI.
He said,
"Goodbye, Bill. Great seeing you",
He just kept looking at me
and I thought,
"It's probably gonna be
the last time I see him".
It was a very sad feeling.
I hope it's not true.
Now, after all these years,
I don't know what he must think.
I hope it makes him happy.
- [man] You looking for your lighter?
- Yeah.
I'm always looking for my lighter.
I got it. That's not mine.
[up-tempo music plays]
Good evening, folks.
This is Douglas Dumbrill.
Forget the ice cubes, gang,
we've really got a cooI show today. Boo.
Let's see, who are our guests?
Look at that.
That's Miss Better Posture.
- And we also have Mr Bad Posture.
- [laughter]
No, we have marvellous musicians,
Murray McKekrin and Chet Baker.
We're going to bring out now one of
the best trumpet players in the world.
He's been with us recently.
I can't find information about him,
but I don't need it.
He's one of my favourite musicians.
He plays very definitely jazz trumpet,
and yet there's something extremely
IyricaI and even somewhat romantic
about his tone and his style of playing.
Let's welcome a great talent,
Mr Chet Baker. Here he is.
[applause]
~ Lately
~ You've been so forgetful
~ A kind of a stop and go
~ Forgetfulness
~ That bothers me
~ Kisses
~ I once had a knack for
[man] It was 1946
and I was 15 years old.
Hirsch brought Chetty over to my house,
and my mother made bacon
and lettuce and tomato sandwiches.
Chetty ate his and then he took mine.
And he kept eating. He was reaI hungry.
My mother said,
"That guy is really hungry".
He kept eating,
and she used to like to bake a lot then.
She'd bake cakes
and he ate all the cake, too.
So he was hungry. He was very thin,
though. He was a good-looking kid.
He played the trumpet.
Anyway, we were doing a job
at the Miramar HoteI in Santa Barbara
with this little band.
And Bill Perkins was up there.
His mother was rich and she had
a house in the hills in Santa Barbara.
So, after the job,
we went up to his house.
How slick Chetty was, you know.
Finally I had Ann Jasmine in the
bedroom, and I was in bed with her.
Then I turned around, for some reason,
and when I turned back,
Chetty was fucking her.
They were going
and she was saying, "Oh, Jack".
She thought I was fucking her,
it was Chetty that was fucking her.
This is how fast he was,
and ever since then
Ann has really liked me a lot.
~ You wish you had tried much less
~ Forgetfulness
~ You'll be upset
~ Forgetful
~ Won't be able to forget
[woman] Between being an actress
and being a singer,
I was a camera girI and I did it in L.A.
I did it at the Ambassador HoteI.
The Coconut Grove. I was
the only girI that worked in the place,
and it was a very plush, nice job.
Across the street one way
was my father's club,
The Tiffany, and across the street
the other way was the Haig,
where Chet Baker was playing.
And we cared for each other very much.
We used to spend a lot of time driving.
I never heard Chet sing at that time.
He would only sing in the car.
But we managed to be
on Pacific Coast Highway a lot.
He wouldn't drink coffee.
He didn't smoke cigarettes.
We did smoke grass,
but we all felt that,
that was a really healthy thing to do.
That was the naturaI high.
We would go skiing, boating,
and we were very, uh...
...in touch with nature,
in touch with life.
Before the sixties,
when it got to be everybody's religion.
And we sure knew how to get lost.
We got lost on the sailboat
in Balboa Bay, and we loved it.
I wasn't even aware
of Dizzy Gillespie...
Roy Eldridge and Charlie Shavers...
...untiI three years later, actually,
when I was in the Army in Berlin
and I heard my first...
I heard on a V-disc,
what they called a V-disc,
over the Armed Forces Network.
They started playing
a lot of Stan Kenton,
and Woody Herman
and then, uh, Dizzy Gillespie
and Charlie Parker.
And, uh, man,
that was a rude awakening,
let me tell you.
From Harry James to Dizzy Gillespie
is kind of a big jump.
I was playing every night.
Someplace there was a session...
...in L.A. and I met Dexter,
and Tony Poindexter,
and, uh, Wardell Gray...
Frank Morgan, who has just
been playing in New York recently.
And Hampton Hawes
and Shelly Manne and Shorty Rogers,
Jack Sheldon and the Candoli Brothers,
Frank Rosolino, and Pete Christlieb...
...Bill Holbrook and Jack Montrose
and all those west coast cats.
And Russ Freeman.
Then I got a job.
One of my firstjobs
was with Vito Musso.
You probably don't remember him,
but he made one record
of Come Back to Sorrento
when he was with Stan Kenton.
It was such a big hit
that he was able to, you know,
be booked and have his own group
and traveI around.
And, uh, the drummer got me on the band.
So he had a very hip rhythm section.
He'd get up there and play...
[humming]
[whimpering]
[man] My name is Hersh HameI
and I'm a bass violin player.
I've been in Los Angeles
many years playing, since 1949.
And one of the things
about Chet, at the time,
was that he wasn't so interested
in playing the be-bop riffs,
that were popular at the time,
as he was playing pretty tunes
like Zing Goes the Strings
to your Heart,
Make Believe,
The Way you Look Tonight.
At the time there was a lot of talk
about west coastjazz,
or "cooI jazz" as some of the New York
or Eastern musicians used to call it.
And they sort of
put our style of music down
out here in Los Angeles.
I really don't think
that they understood that
musicians like Chet Baker
and Art Pepper
were really products
of their environment.
The sun and the beach
and the warmth and the romanticism.
Chet's kind of playing
was just indigenous to jazz
as The Beach Boys were,
later on, to rock and roll.
[woman] I loved Chet
long before I met him,
because he personified,
for me... [laughing]
- I can't do it.
- [man] It's OK.
All right. [clears throat]
I loved Chet way before I met him
because, for me,
he personified the very thing
that gave meaning to my life,
and that is jazz.
I was playing drums in a little pizza
place and he walked in one night...
...with his trumpet. I knew it was Chet.
And he looked like a Greek god to me.
And I fell in love with him immediately.
[Chet Baker singing]
He was very gentle,
very sweet, very charming.
I guess that's what it was,
the mystique about him.
The Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
kind of scenario.
Shortly before my mother died,
Chet was doing his number
about having to get high.
I finally got some money
out of my brother.
I had left the home by that time.
I couldn't take any more.
So, I went to a women's shelter
to get away from it.
I spoke to my brother on the phone.
He said, "Well, I told Chet to leave.
He's full of shit.
I never want to see him again".
Because Chet cons people.
He has this ability
to elicit sympathy from people.
And it's all a big act.
He came to my brother,
and put his arms around him:
"Oh, I can't make it.
I wait every morning
for the sun to come up.
It's agonising and I'm hurting so bad".
My brother fell for it
and gave him $50 so he could go cop.
After that he realised
that he was being conned
because Chet said,
"How was I? Was I pretty good?
I should have been an actor".
So you really never know
when Chet is being sincere.
~ Why the gods above me
~ Who must be in the know
~ Think so little of me
~ They permit you to go
~ When you're near
there's such an air
~ Of spring
[scatting]
~ About it
~ I can hear
~ A lark
~ Somewhere begin to sing about it
~ There's no love song finer
~ But how strange the change
~ From major to minor
~ Every time
~ We say goodbye
He played reaI good trumpet.
He didn't know what note he was hitting.
He would just press the valves down,
and it was reaI easy for him to play.
I hated this
because I played the trumpet too,
and it was reaI hard for me to play.
Every day I had to practice,
all day long.
Practice scales,
practice the Arbans book.
Chetty never practiced at all.
He just could play,
and he knew every song.
He could just play any tune
and he knew the melody,
and he could play jazz to it.
And he always knew where he was.
It was reaI hard for me.
I never knew where I was.
I'd always forget what bar we were in.
In fact, where are we now?
[humming]
My mother bought me
a Steinway piano for $3,000
and Chet couldn't understand why
I got a Steinway piano instead of a car.
'Cause he really couldn't think
about having to work at music.
It was just easy for him.
Everything came easy for Chetty.
He was just a naturaI musician.
~ Somewhere begin to sing about it
~ There's no love song finer
~ But how strange
~ The change from major to minor
~ Every time
~ We say goodbye
- [man] You sounded great.
- [man 2] Yeah, that was it.
- [man 1] You hear that?
- Yeah.
But anyway, you can't play it for him.
You gotta...
[indistinct]
[woman] Hey, Chet.
- Would you like a glass of wine?
- Yeah.
Somebody put that down there.
[woman] I wanted to ask you about the
psychiatric ward and the questionnaires,
and how you manipulated your way
out of the Army.
Well, before I got transferred I made up
my mind I wanted to get out of the Army.
So I started seeing
the post psychiatrist...
...and complaining about...
...not being able to go down
to the latrine in the morning...
...and do my business
while sitting alongside 12 other guys
just talking and
reading newspapers and smoking.
And I started going across the street
in a clump of bushes.
I told him that. He checked
all that out, found out it was true,
and that helped a great deaI.
That and the multiple answer
questionnaires that they give you
to ask if you want to be a mechanic
or a florist or work
for the forestry department.
I would always pick
the most feminine one.
And I told them I smoked marijuana,
you know, that I played bebop.
Then I got transferred
out to the middle of the desert.
I stayed there a few months
and went AWOL.
I turned myself back in to this
post psychiatrist in San Francisco,
who accompanied me to the MP's.
And I got sent to the stockade.
I stayed there for a few days.
To get high in the stockades,
these guys were sniffing fumes
from a rag stuffed
in an Army truck gasoline tank.
I saw that and I said,
"I gotta get out of here".
You know, there's got to be
a better way.
So, I kind of put myself in a trance
and nobody could get through to me
for hours on end, you know.
I'd just sit there,
staring out into the distance.
They gave me a secanoI
and put me in a private cell that night.
And the next day I was transferred
to the neuropsychiatry ward.
So, it was kind of tricky business,
trying to keep from
getting the shock treatment,
and at the same time,
getting what I wanted,
which was out of the Army.
[fanfare]
It isn't much, but it's
Rigsy's best. Don't swallow it.
[Baker] We had a good time out in
the desert there for about three months.
Everyone was getting loaded.
Grass was $30 a kilo.
After three months
I decided it was time to leave,
so I went AWOL.
I had such an influence on the band
that the day after I went AWOL
half the band went AWOL.
And the bandleader flipped out.
What's the matter?
Am I bringing you down?
Smile.
Doesn't move you, huh?
Well, try this one, pres.
[upbeat loud tune]
- I'll stuff acorns...
- Take it easy, take it easy.
What if he was a drummer?
[Baker] But, nevertheless,
I was discharged three weeks later.
A generaI discharge
under honourable conditions.
"Unadaptable to Army life".
[~ Chet Baker: My Ideal]
[woman] His father wanted him
to be just a naturaI musician,
but his father really held reins on him.
I don't think they were so close.
I think he was closer to me.
He was just exactly like his father.
We lived in Oklahoma City
with his aunt and uncle.
They had a radio and we only had popular
music on for one hour in the day.
And when it was on,
he would climb up on the stooI
and just sit there
for one hour and listen.
When it was through playing,
he would just climb down...
...be reaI quiet for a while,
then start playing.
And he learned songs by memory
when he was that young.
Yes, he didn't get a trumpet
untiI he was about 11.
And his father bought it at a pawn shop
and he just brought it home,
sat it down and didn't say,
"Chet, this is yours".
So Chetjust took it and started
practicing and listening to records.
And in two weeks he was picking out
The Two O'Clock Jump by Harry James.
My father had been a musician.
And, unfortunately, when I was born
in '29 it was the Depression.
He had to give up playing
because nobody had any money
to go out and listen to music
or go dancing or anything like that,
in Oklahoma, anyway, in those years.
So, later on, in California,
he gave me a trombone
because Jack Teagarden
was his favourite.
I tried to play it,
but it was so clumsy and so big for me.
I couldn't reach the bottom positions
and the mouthpiece was too big.
So he took it away
and brought home a trumpet
after about three weeks.
It was kind ofjust love at first sight,
and I've been playing it ever since.
Well, he was ditching schooI and I
just knew he was gonna get into trouble.
So we just signed him up for the Army.
And then when he went to
El Camino College he played in the band,
but his band master said that
he would never make it as a musician
because he kept
putting in things, you know.
He'd put in little riffs.
And the first time that Chet played
a concert, he got a telegram from him.
- [man] What did he say?
- Well, congratulations.
I never thought
you'd make it. [chuckles]
[Baker] Then I got my firstjob
with Charlie Parker.
And my second was with Stan Getz.
My third was with Gerry Mulligan.
And we formed a group
that became very famous.
We were together 11 months,
actually, in a club.
I made severaI recordings
which became very popular.
We both won the polls, Gerry as the
number one baritone saxophone player,
and myself as the number one
jazz trumpet player.
That was both in 1954 and '55
by Down Beat and Metronome.
The critics and the popular...
...where all the people vote
for their favourite instrumentalist.
And even tied Nat King Cole in 1954
in the male vocalist category.
Which was incredible, because I had
never even been on the thing before.
[man] Vera, Chet became
a famous musician.
And he won all those awards,
but did he disappoint you as a son?
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes.
But...
...let's don't go into that.
[Chet Baker singing]
[man] I first came across him
when I was 16 years old
playing in a high schooI
dance band in Oregon.
And we'd just discovered Charlie Parker.
and read Young Man With a Horn.
Chet was the young man
with a horn in a way.
From Here to Eternity had come out
a couple of years before,
and there's a touch of
Robert E. Lee Prewitt in there, as well.
And this was the Eisenhower era.
There weren't that many anti-sociaI,
slightly anti-sociaI role models
to look up to.
And when the first Chet Baker albums
on Pacific Jazz came out,
here was this incredible, fluent music.
And we all wondered where it came from.
There was a channeI of a danger
that he communicated
in the way that James Dean did,
on a more underground leveI.
And he looked like kind of a bad boy.
At that time it wasn't
an underground culture so much,
but that's all we had to go for.
Finally Hollywood picked up on the
image and decided to make a film
on the early life of Chet Baker
starring Chet.
But Chet got busted and went to Europe,
so they changed the story a little bit
and put Robert Wagner
and Natalie Wood in it
and called it
All the Fine Young Cannibals.
A whole lot of people
were just obsessed with Chet Baker.
Jazz musicians then had names like
Bach and Lockjaw and Peanuts and Dizzy.
He was just named Chet,
which is sort of a soft sound.
Americans' role models of the time
were more like
a football fullback or halfback.
That's why Chet, you see him on this...
I don't know how old he was there,
but that's about what he looked like
during this period.
He looked about 21 or 22.
The way he played,
what he looked like, his name,
everything all went together.
Sometimes you see jazz musicians
who are wonderfuI, but the visuaI image
doesn't have much to do
with the way they play.
With Chet it was all of a piece.
He affected a lot of us this way.
We used to, absolutely,
with bated breath
wait for the new albums to come out.
He's a reaI incredible originaI.
Even the movie continued
to embellish the romantic myth
of the jazz trumpet player,
but it was an
internationaI group of people.
And jazz was the cement
that really kept
that whole lifestyle going.
When you see movies about the 50's
everybody thinks it was about
Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens
and stuff like that,
but people that I knew in the 50's,
I mean, they had a record collection.
It was partly eclectic.
There'd be a Frank Sinatra record,
there'd be West Side Story,
some shows, but it was jazz.
I didn't know anybody
who had a Buddy Holly record.
And I was a teenager in the 50's.
I spent my whole teens in the 50's.
[jazz music playing]
I hung out with
a lot ofjazz musicians in Paris.
Everybody came through.
Bud Powell was at the Louisiana HoteI,
Dexter Gordon at the CrystaI HoteI.
Johnny Griffin, Art Taylor, Duke Jordan,
Allen Eager was there.
He wasn't playing but he was there.
Lucky Thompson.
Itjust goes on and on.
Sidney Bechet had just died
when I arrived in Paris.
All kinds of generations.
I was living in a hoteI
that was called The Beat HoteI in 1960.
Number nine Git-le-Coeur,
Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs
were living in that hoteI.
Jack Kerouac had just gone out the door.
There was a little street
called the "Rue de la Huchette".
And I was walking down this street
and I heard this sound.
I looked at this picture on a wall
and there was this picture of Chet.
I walked through the door.
It was called the Chat Qui Peche,
which means "the cat who fishes".
And it was built above
a Roman vault of a cellar.
I went down and I knew every groove
of every Chet Baker record.
I knew what he sounded like in my sleep.
Nothing on record even began to approach
what he really sounded like live.
I had hoped and prayed
that somebody somewhere
could have recorded
the way he was playing.
He was 29 years old,
he was in the peak of his form,
and playing so fast and so clean.
I went down to the Chat Qui Peche
and I was sitting there
and this French girI
sat down next to me.
He was playing and I turned to her
to say something
and she said, "Don't talk to me.
I'm in love with Chet Baker".
And I said, "So am I".
[scatting]
It's hard, having
just seen 'Round Midnight.
I later lived in the Louisiana HoteI.
But I asked Bud Powell's wife,
Buttercup, about it.
"How does Bud look so good?
He seems to be preserved".
And she said, "Don't worry, baby,
the deterioration's on the inside".
[scatting]
[woman] Thank you.
The smoke builds a stairway
for you to descend
You come to my arms
May this bliss never end
Awake or asleep
every memory I'll keep
When I'm deep in a dream of you
Nice words, uh-huh.
Then from the ceiling
soft music comes stealing
We glide in a lovers' refrain
You're so appealing
that I'm soon revealing
My love for you over again
Cigarette burns me
I wake with a start
My hand isn't hurt
but there's pain in my heart
But we'll love anew
just as we used to do
When I'm deep in a dream of you
- [jazz music plays]
- [indistinct chattering]
[man] When I was a kid I always
used to listen to your records.
That's how I learned to play, man.
What do you think of that Cadillac?
You interested in Caddies?
I saw you had one, too.
I've got a '69 gold convertible Caddy.
- It's bad, man.
- [Baker] This is a '59.
[man] When they were cooI.
Mine's when they started
getting really big and ugly.
Wait a minute. There's no bigger
or uglier Cadillac than a...
Really? It looked like it was you,
though. It was a pink one.
- Get comfortable and just float around.
- [laughter]
[man] People always told me
that Chet Baker liked to float around.
You like to float around a little bit?
As high as I can get off the ground.
One time... I was playing trumpet...
[laughter]
Someone told me, "Well, Chet Baker
plays a lot like Miles Davis".
- What do you think about that?
- Well, they can say that.
- Does it hurt your feelings?
- People that don't...
...have enough ears to be able to tell
the difference between Miles and me
and Miles and Clifford Brown
or Miles and Dizzy Gillespie
or Lee Morgan... I just played
with Dizzy day before yesterday.
Lee Morgan got shot
on the bandstand, didn't he?
- Lee Morgan, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Shit.
- His wife shot him.
[laughing] Ouch!
[man] You ever been married, Chet?
- Yeah.
- [laughter]
- But not shot.
- Really?
[man] Clifford Brown died in a car
accident when he was 24, right?
He did all those great recordings
in a two year span then he dies.
- Yes, he did.
- Know that song, Joy Spring?
- Clifford Brown?
- [scats]
[man scatting]
[both scatting]
- [cheering]
- [man] All right!
You said you weren't
gonna sing for us there, bud.
[whistling]
[man] I can see any of these girls in
that grey Jaguar convertible of yours,
travelling around the country
with that big collie dog.
[Baker] I don't think
I know them, but...
Incredibly it turned out differently.
[~ Chet Baker: She Was Too Good to Me]
[woman] They're great.
[Baker] They're nice looking ladies.
- [woman] SurreaI.
- [Baker] I like to look.
The guy's a good photographer,
all right.
[man] He took Marilyn Monroe's
first pictures.
- I think he was in love with her.
- [woman] BeautifuI.
So these were the girls
that were around in the 50's.
Does that look like one of your exes?
[laughter]
[Baker] Well, there are
a couple of photographs
of different women that I've known
on some of the albums.
[woman] Who's that black girI
in the empty room? Maybe not black.
She's not black,
she's um, Pakistani, East Indian.
- Is she one of your wives?
- It was my second wife.
Halema.
BeautifuI lady.
[man] Yeah, she's so pretty.
- How many times were you married?
- Three.
Who was your first wife?
Her name was Charlaine.
She was from Compton, Lynwood area.
[sighing]
Then Halema and then,
I'm still married...
...to an English girI I met in Italy...
...in 1959.
[woman] A French girI in New York.
It's always an English girI in Italy,
a French girI in New York.
Do you remember any day that was
kind of like the best day of your life?
Oh, my goodness.
Maybe the day I got my Alpha Romeo SS.
That was a nice day.
I had a lot of fun that day.
[woman] You drive it 90 miles an hour?
Uh, it would... it would run along.
It was only 1300 cc, but it would
run along at 125 miles an hour.
But it was just so low
off of the ground.
It made it seem
like you were really flying.
Nice car.
[woman] Maybe you can
tell me about the time
when you had
your unfortunate encounter
and your teeth knocked out
and how you survived.
[Baker] 1968. It is a long time ago.
[woman] Yep. Almost 20 years.
It's the story everyone gets wrong,
so this is your chance to put it right.
I used to go to this hoteI
in the Fillmore to cop every day.
I was working in Sausalito
at the Trident.
And I used to use the stairway.
I'd go up to the second floor.
This one day I went in and I looked up
and there was a guy up there
that I'd seen
in the connections apartment.
And I had the feeling
that he was gonna try to rip me off.
So, I just put my hand in my pocket,
as if I had a gun,
and I kept on walking up the stairs.
And he backed off.
But the next day, when I came down,
he had these five young black cats
waiting for me.
- And look what happened.
- [woman] They knocked your teeth out?
Well, the guy walked up to me
and asked me what time it was.
Well, he cold-cocked me,
and I went down into the street
then I jumped up and we fought.
They were all around me,
and I ran and we'd fight and I'd run.
I even jumped into a car, at one point,
with four older white guys,
about 30 years old.
And they were all around the car,
"Get out of that man's car.
He don't want you in his car".
And they pushed me back out
in the street again.
All they had to do was drive off.
So it started all over again.
And then two guys, two older black guys,
threw a broadside
in the middle of the street.
They looked like
they could have been detectives.
When they did, these guys backed off
and they snatched me in the car
and took me to the hospitaI.
Yeah.
[woman] Did you have to get your
whole jaw rewired and everything?
No, but my mouth had been damaged
to the point where the best thing to do
was to take them all out.
I didn't have good teeth anyway.
[woman] Did you already know that you
were determined that you'd play again?
It took me about six months
to make up my mind
to even try to find a way
to play with dentures.
But I'd played 25 years
with just one front tooth.
[woman] Oh... wow.
And how did you survive
during that three year period?
Well, a lot of things.
I worked in a gas station...
...for awhile, from 7.00 in the morning
untiI 11.00 at night.
That was about the hardest one.
- [woman] Pumping gas?
- [Baker] Mm-hmm. Sure.
- Did anyone recognise you?
- No, not really.
- And you had no teeth?
- [chuckles]
No, I had dentures. I had teeth.
Before I played in front of a New York
audience it took me three years.
It was Dizzy that got me the job.
He made a phone call in New York,
and came back a few minutes later.
He said,
"I got you three weeks work
at the Half Note in New York".
[chuckles] So that was nice.
[woman] So that was do or die,
you're on again?
And everybody was wondering
if you could play, right?
Yeah.
[~ Chet Baker:
Everything Happens to Me]
[laughing]
[Vavra] As I told you, the first minute
I saw him I was in love with him.
[woman] You said he
looked like a Greek god?
[Vavra] Yes, exactly. Well, he did.
And he still does.
Of course, there's always a huge scene
whenever we split up.
It's very volatile.
Screaming and yelling and throwing
things out into the parking lot.
Then we get back together, but...
I went up to San Francisco
where he was playing a gig,
and I was so happy to see him,
but he was very aloof.
He was pleasant,
"How are you doing? You look great".
But I, I just wanted him again.
I wanted to hold him and love him.
So down in the dressing room
I said, "Is it OK"?
He said, "What"?
"Can I hold you for a minute"?
He said, "I don't see why not".
So, I embraced him
and I just broke down and I said,
"Chet, how do you stop loving somebody"?
I just kept saying it
over and over again.
I asked him if we could meet tomorrow
somewhere. I wanted to talk with him.
Just be with him for awhile.
He said, "Sure, meet me in front of... "
I can't remember now where it was.
So, I drove up there.
I waited six hours. He never showed up.
It was really devastating.
That was 1977,
and I saw him again in September, 1982.
Well, the story was
he had broken up with Ruth,
and he came back to see me,
to be with me.
But he was very unhappy,
very distraught.
But I was joyfuI. I was so joyfuI
I didn't see his pain right away.
[Chet Baker singing]
[Vavra] Sometimes during recording
sessions, especially the vocals,
he was having some particular
problem with rhythm
or he couldn't fit the words
with the rhythm
so I kind of
went over it with him like this.
I'd snap my fingers and he said,
"Yeah, OK. All right".
And he even remarked
one night in a club...
I was sitting next to him
and he said, "This is Diane,
and I love to have her with me
at recording sessions
because she helps me with the tunes".
[laughs]
My son found out
there were some violent things going on,
that Chet was hitting me.
And he had an occasion to talk to him
on the telephone
when Chet was at the airport,
and, um, and he said to Chet,
"If you ever touch my mother again
I will beat the hell out of you".
Chet was loaded on SeconaI,
so he was not very coherent.
But I could hear him say,
"Oh, you little punk,
your life isn't going anywhere".
~ The touch of your hand
~ Is like heaven
~ A heaven that I've never known
~ The blush of your cheek
~ Whenever I speak
~ Tells me that you are my own
[Vavra] So it's a no-win situation
with a junkie.
I know that term is derogatory.
I don't mean to be derogatory,
but it's a no-win situation
with a drug abuser. How's that, better?
[laughing]
[man] Remember what Chet said to me
when we took that photograph
at the Whippoorwill in New York City?
No.
"I'd like to have
a photograph of Diane".
- Really?
- Yeah.
That's nice.
That's very nice.
You really can't rely on Chet.
If you know that,
then you can pull through.
[scatting]
[Baker] We had a party
at my house in L.A. one evening.
All the guys in the band
and their wives
and some other people.
We were talking and drinking.
Listening to music.
And about 45 minutes goes by,
and I realised we hadn't seen
a friend of mine in a long time.
So, I had to push open the door.
The guy had slumped down in the corner
with the spike still in his arm.
It was a bright blue colour.
When I say blue, I mean blue.
He hadn't taken a breath in a long time.
[chattering indistinctly]
So we started putting
cold compresses on his neck...
[speaking Italian]
...and artificiaI respiration.
And we did that
for over 30 minutes...
...before he finally made a sound.
You know, like...
[imitates gasping sound]
One of those kind of sounds.
And, uh, ten minutes later
we had him finally coming around
and, uh...
...he said...
..."You guys messed up my high".
Well, you know,
he was kind of out there.
He didn't know what he was saying,
I guess. He was really loaded.
He almost...
He almost died that day.
- [laughing]
- [Baker] Not getting me out there.
- [woman] He can use that as a mirror.
- Which one?
Oh, that's right, this big reflection.
I don't mean to walk away from you.
- You want me not to walk away? OK.
- [man] Come back.
- All right.
- [man] Let's do it, babe.
I'd rather try it open if you could
work it out. That'd be a lot easier.
- [man] Yeah.
- OK. OK.
[piano playing]
[Young] ~ You were my adored one
~ Then you became the bored one
~ And I was like a toy
- [Young] To dress Chet.
- [woman] Oh, yes.
[Young] This is fun.
That brings to mind, I think, the best
comment he ever made about clothes.
Though there were two, really.
"Listen, Ruth, I'm not up there to win
any beauty contests", the first one.
And all I was talking about was
a shower and a comb through the hair.
The other one was,
the fact that once, finally knowing
that I really did
have his best interest at heart,
which I don't think he was used to
in anybody, ever, at any time.
Talked about, orjust asked me, finally,
turned around and said,
"Hey, does this look OK"?
- I said, "No, that stinks".
- He said, "Well, it's red. It's red".
It was like, this hideous burgundy
with a pair of red pants.
Which, in his mind, as long as
it came from the red family it worked.
[playing piano]
~ Listen to them play our song
~ How it shocks my poor brain
with that electric refrain
~ I get a-buzzin'
[Young]
Chet did not discourage me to sing.
He wasn't supportive of it.
There's a big difference.
But it depends where
your own self-confidence is.
And I didn't have that.
He thrived on that as much as I'm sure
he thrives much more so on Diane
or on past people, CaroI, Halema
and the rest of them.
And so, I'm just lucky
that those years that I did spend
weren't fruitless, finally.
Because my ears were open,
my heart was open, my head was open.
More than that... Well, my legs
were open, too, once in a while.
You know.
In your case it was only the music?
What else was there about me?
For me it was only the music.
And it was back to the fascination.
There was a personality. It was somebody
I had a tremendous regard for.
It would be like living with Picasso.
I mean, if you appreciate art,
you appreciate it!
And, to me, that was
the closest that I ever got
to something that I hailed as being from
my personaI point of view, greatness.
Which anybody who has
any sensibility for creative means
wants to be connected to.
It was getting as close as I could
to my own element.
[woman] Did you have income of your own,
or did you have to depend upon him?
When I was about 21
I got a chunk of money.
And when I met him
I was only 22, remember.
So, I'm not a frivolous broad
thatjust goes getting rid of stuff.
I had enough of an amount left.
And I suppose that's part
of what Chet must have zeroed into
with his kind of ability
to know those things.
But, systematically, he ended up
draining me out of that completely.
I'm sure he knows that, too.
You know, I've never felt that
those things even out very easily
in a relationship.
I didn't want to make it
an announcement to him,
even though I didn't realise
the kind of neurotic idiot he was
that had this dependency on anything.
Whatever.
It's not even about heroin, per say.
Whatever. You know, what's mine is mine
and what's yours is yours.
That kind of deaI.
And he did support me, I must say...
...as best he could, but
he was very arrogant about that.
~ I must confess it leaves me a mess
[man] Chet told us a story.
A terrible story about
how he got his teeth knocked out.
[Young] Mmm. Mm-hmm.
- It's terrible, isn't it?
- [man] What's your version?
In my opinion, the story he's handed out
over that incident is quite false.
No, that's not the truth.
That's Chet Baker in his...
...in his typicaI way
of gaining the sympathy for himself.
Well, let's put it this way.
He ran into the wrong person.
Somebody just decided, "I don't
give a fuck if you are Chet Baker".
And yes, his teeth were definitely
knocked out of his head.
Somebody went for him, but not
for the reasons that he describes.
Really, what had happened in truth was,
that somebody kicked his arse
for his manipulating way,
only figuring out, I guess, at the end,
what's the best way to get this guy:
"He's a trumpet player. His mouth
is the most important thing to him.
Let's go for it".
So whatever these five black cats are
that he had described,
I'm sure, as to the ones who jumped him.
No, they didn'tjump him because
he had a wad of money anywhere.
All that's a bunch of shit.
What happened is,
that somebody sent those guys out
to do a job and they did it.
And he paid dearly for it.
~ Do you know
~ How lost our pain
[Young] One by one they were pulled.
Did he tell you that?
Because of the beating
that he got to his face,
he had to eventually
go and see a dentist,
because there were just like
stubbles of teeth left.
And every one was pulled, one at a time.
And that's why
he glorifies this incident.
Just the way I did, "One at a time".
And then his overuse in this story
is, to me, even more obvious,
because Chet is such a manipulator.
He loves to gain the sympathy
out of all these horrendous things
that happen to him.
And then you get a new set
of works here. For him it was nothing.
Because those stupid teeth
are still in his head 25 years later.
I used to glue them back together.
~ With sleepless eyes
~ How could you know
~ What love is
~ What love is
~ What love is ~
I got arrested because...
Actually, because of the newspapers.
Uh... in Lucca.
Because, at the time,
I was living in a clinic...
...in Lucca.
And my doctor would
take me to work at night...
...and stay there and
bring me back to the clinic.
So, I was under a controlled cheer.
And one day I had to go to Verragio...
...in the daytime,
and he couldn't get away.
So, I rented a car and
he gave me my medicine for the day.
On the way over to Verragio from Lucca
I stopped in a gas station...
...to make an injection
and I was in there quite a while.
I had just finished and I cleaned up
and was getting ready to leave.
There was a knock on the door,
and it was the police.
And they asked me
if I would come with them,
and they took me to the police station,
they called my doctor and he came
to the police station and got me
and took me back to the clinic.
The next day,
when the newspaper came out,
it said that
I had been found unconscious
in the toilet of a gas station.
That the police
had to break in the door...
[clears throat]
That the room was covered in blood.
I mean, completely ridiculous...
...story.
So, naturally,
the city attorney, I guess,
the district attorney,
started a big investigation.
He arrested two doctors,
he arrested my wife.
He arrested the man
that ran the hoteI where I lived.
He arrested a friend of mine who
was visiting Italy, who was an attorney.
He went to Milano
to get my wife, Halema,
and told her he just wanted her to
come back to Lucca to sign a statement.
Once he got her in his district
he took her passport and arrested her.
Can you believe that?
I went to Florence for an appeaI.
And had three months taken off
so I only did 15 months.
But during that time I played a lot,
thought a lot
about getting the hell out of there.
[man] Ruth, you said
that Chet signed this paper to you
- to make a film on his life...
- Mm-hmm.
...or do a book on his life.
I would reserve the rights of anything
that ever would be approached to him.
[man] He signed the same paper for me.
Uh-huh?
So then we have a lot in common.
[~ Ruth Young and Chet Baker:
Autumn Leaves]
[Baker sings]
[Young] When I first met Chet,
he was very unhealthy.
And a lot more vulnerable
than he ultimately became
because he was on the rebound
of his own career.
He was on the outs
trying to get back in.
And he was a lot nicer.
A lot more fun to be around.
If you can even say such a thing.
But it was because
of his insecurity of himself
that things were quite different.
I was raised
in a show business background.
And it was motion pictures.
And it was only
classicaI and jazz music in the house.
At that time Jane Russell was
a very, very dear friend of the family.
She's sort of
a technicaI godmother, I suppose.
And she and my mother and my father
and Marilyn, who was involved
in some projects with my father,
used to go and hang out
and listen to music.
It was really, mostly,
because of Gerry Mulligan
more than it was
because of Chet Baker.
But, of course, they ended up
falling madly in love with him
as everybody does,
and my mother eventually
kept handing me record after record.
But it was a composite of Sinatra
and the old singers, too.
Anita O'Day, whom I adored.
And Peggy Lee and Julie London
and Chris Connor and June Christy.
By the time I was seven I used to love
to dance to Frank Sinatra records.
And that's when
I had these little dreams of singing.
And that's how
it all started for me, I suppose,
because it was
my mother's reaction to this guy
that stuck with her so terrifically
that she just turned it over to me.
So it started a long time ago.
It's so funny how things turn around.
And I did end up,
finally, running into Chet.
I met him at the Half Note.
I pass by this place and I see
Chet Baker stuff in the window,
name-wise, featuring him.
And that's all I need at this moment,
is to see this.
Eventually, in he walked
and headed for the bandstand.
And nothing was said,
but we glanced at each other.
Then I watched him
throughout his performance.
And he was gaunt in here,
terribly, terribly.
And he was wearing
that red and burgundy combination
that he thought was such a big hit,
which was wild.
With a pair of cowboy boots.
He looked absolutely horrible.
But still, he was charming.
It was still my hero
walking into the room.
So, I listened and I watched
and it was great.
I just had to thank him.
I said something like,
"I gotta tell you,
it's really great to see you.
I think you're doing a hell of a job".
'Cause he sounded like shit.
He was trying so hard.
And that was what was so endearing,
to see this man
completely reveaI himself,
to look so horrible,
to sound so terrible,
but to be standing there
and trying again.
And that's what was
the moment that I connected with.
So, he said, "That's really
nice to hear", and all this stuff.
It was reaI cute, then he said,
"Well, don't be a stranger".
So, I went back the next night
and that was it.
Then we just started hanging out,
permanently, from that time.
So, it took like, exactly
about 20 seconds to get hooked.
~ Daydream
~ Don't break my reverie
~ Until I find
~ That she
~ Is daydreaming
~ Just like
~ Me ~
- [indistinct chattering]
- [jazz music plays]
[phone ringing]
Hello.
[phone continues ringing]
Adriano.
[phone ringing]
[singing in Italian]
[speaking Italian]
[man speaking Italian]
[laughing]
[coughing]
- [groaning]
- Get down!
[man laughing]
[V. Baker] Take my place.
Come on, let's see some action.
[man] We'd come out to Oklahoma.
It's so important for all of us
because we see these photographs of him
from a long time ago
that Bill Claxton took
and we see your son, PauI,
looking so much like he did
when he was really young.
And that's why we keep saying to you,
"Is there a story? Is there
something romantic that happened
that you could share with us
that would make us be able
to feeI and be at that time".
I don't know.
Over the years I've...
I can't think of anything.
I met Chet in Italy in 1960.
I'd gone there to work
with the Shirley Bassey Show.
There were a bunch of kids in the show
that were going every night to see him.
They kept saying, "You've got
to come down and see Chet Baker".
I go, "Who's Chet Baker"?
I never heard of him.
The Friday night I finally gave in.
I thought, I'll go,
then they won't keep bugging me.
So, I did.
And when I first saw Chet
I couldn't believe it was the person
that they'd been talking about.
No way.
They were telling me all this stuff
about drugs and being busted
and going to jaiI.
And he'd been married twice,
and he sounded like a reaI character.
When I saw him he looked so young
and he was good-looking.
And he could play.
[Baker] Well, I was working,
actually, in a little club in Milano.
And I had been there severaI months.
And a big show came through town,
one part of which
was announced by a German girI,
another by an Italian,
and CaroI had the English part.
One of those circus type things with
girls running around, skimpily clad
in furry garments.
You know, with long tails.
Other girls with hip boots,
shiny patent...
With cracking whips...
Take all these furry things
running about.
[C. Baker]
Before Chet I dated Terrence Stamp.
About nine months
I dated him on and off.
He was living with MichaeI Caine then
in an apartment on Wimpole Street.
They had a lot of fun up there.
Meanwhile, I went to Italy, so
after I met Chet I didn't ever go back,
so I didn't ever see Terry again.
We had a great time, at first,
especially in Rome. I love Rome.
We had a great time. We were chased
around by the paparazzi a lot.
You know, they'd be waiting
outside the hoteI, in the bushes.
That really got on our nerves
because we had two rooms at this hoteI
for appearance's sake
and for my parents.
They were always on my back, you know.
Chet had all these troubles
in Italy, so he was newsworthy.
Chet enjoyed going out. [laughing]
He'd bust on me,
"That dress in the picture is shaking.
The zipper went out".
I gained some weight while I was there,
we ate so much.
Yeah, we used to do
a lot of restaurant scenes then.
[man] Wasn't Chet separated from Halema
and with you
when he went to gaoI in Italy?
- [C. Baker] When he did the 16 months?
- Yeah.
[C. Baker] Yeah, I was with him
before it happened.
And I waited for him,
and I went back to Lucca and stayed.
And it was great, I mean,
nobody could do enough for him.
It was like he was a hero now that
he'd done 16 months, you know, in jaiI
- and gone through all this.
- Shut up.
[C. Baker] They fell over themselves
to do things. He had so much work.
He was being photographed all the time.
You know how it is.
[yawning]
Why did you wake me up,
you crazy old man?
Excuse me.
- The coronet.
- Thank you.
[C. Baker] I lost it when I met Chet.
I just forgot everything, you know.
It surprises me that I did that,
now when I think about it.
I didn't think about where it was
gonna end. I met Chet, and that was it.
I just took off with him.
[man] How do you feeI when he leaves
and he doesn't say goodbye?
He just leaves as he comes, which is OK.
It's always a bit of a surprise,
when you plan dinner or something
and you've just been to the market.
Spend a few bucks for groceries and
you come home and he's gone, you know.
What are I gonna do
with all this food now?
We had to go on welfare for awhile
because he couldn't work.
Meanwhile, he got his dentures fixed
and picked up his horn
to start practising again.
He couldn't make a sound. Not a sound.
And he didn't think
he was gonna be able to play again.
He really didn't, but when we moved back
to New York in '73,
things started to happen
for Chet slowly.
He worked at a nightclub
for nine months, Strikers.
The business did good
and then he got other offers.
Carnegie Hall, and he wanted
to go back to Europe very much.
But he couldn't. He wasn't allowed
into Germany or Italy or England.
And those were places
where he had a lot of work,
so he wasn't moving around too much.
Then he found out he could
go back to Europe, from about '75 on.
And spending all that time away.
I guess that's when the marriage
really started to disintegrate.
[man] CaroI, when Dean
had his accident...
- [C. Baker] Do I have to?
- You don't have to.
Are you gonna use it?
I mean, you know...
Don't if you feeI funny about it.
When Dean was run down
by a drunk driver...
.. I flew up to Tulsa.
I called Chet in Europe severaI times.
I know he got the message
that Dean was badly hurt.
I wanted him to call home.
I needed a little support
at that time, moraI support.
But he never did call.
Or write.
I thought he didn't get the message, but
I did find out he did get the message,
so I don't know whether it was just
he couldn't deaI with it,
and that's why.
But it would have been nice
if he had called.
I know Dean would have liked it.
- But he didn't.
- [man] Who was with him at that time?
- Do I have to talk about that?
- No.
[C.Baker] I don't?
I'd rather not. [laughs]
Doesn't matter, really.
Everybody else says,
"You met Ruth Young?
You mean you interviewed that bitch"?
You edit that out.
That was his downfall, let me tell you.
You're not gonna put any of this on.
That was his downfall, Ruth Young.
That's when Chet changed.
I didn't want to talk about that,
but since you say you've met her...
...that was when
he started taking drugs.
She was a very,
very destructive force in his life.
[Young] Really, in truth,
the first one was a maniac.
The second one, Halema was supposedly,
this is his description,
was frigid.
CaroI was a virgin.
She never knew anybody.
Now, can you imagine that?
From the time you're 19.
She's now 45.
She's been separated from him.
He rejected, abandoned
and deserted her 20 years ago
and she still says, "Hello, don't tell
him we want anything,
we just like to see him
once in a while".
So it's like one is the crazy,
two is the frigid,
three is the Virgin Mary,
then I come...
No, then Diane is... I don't know
what category we can put her in.
She would find it more scintillating
that you skip all of this seriousness
and just roll out the cameras for them
in a bedroom. I'd love that, you know?
~ For heaven's sake
~ Let's fall in love
~ It's no mistake
~ To call it love
~ An angel's holding hands with me
I went over there to visit Dad once.
I didn't know he'd left town yet.
I thought he was still there.
I knocked on the door
and knocked, there was no answer.
I looked through the window
and couldn't see anybody in there.
The window was cracked,
it was about three, four inches opened.
I tried the gate and the gate was open,
unlocked and everything.
I just went in
and got some of my dad's awards
and some of his records and stuff.
She didn't want Ruth
to have them in the event...
Mainly stuff that belonged to him,
but I also go her back
for a few things that
she'd said to me and done to me, too.
And I don't feeI guilty
about a bit of it, either.
[man] How'd you get back at her?
Well, when I went to Europe with her,
I knew what meant the most to her,
like herjewellery and stuff like that.
I knew what meant the most to her,
and what would hurt the most,
and what she'd had the longest.
So, I knew where
herjewellery was and everything,
and she had some sexy clothes
I liked, too.
I was about 14 at the time, you know.
She had these sexy clothes.
I think I got a nice slip,
and a silk skirt, you know.
I got all herjewellery. I was...
That was the only way
I could get her back
for anything that she'd ever
done to me that bothered me.
[man] Missy, what'd you do
with the jewellery?
[Missy] I hawked it.
All of it, for $90.
She had some pretty black suede heels
that were about
three and a half inches tall.
Couldn't even walk in these shoes.
Couldn't even walk in them.
~ There's a line
between love and fascination
~ It's hard to see
on an evening such as this
~ For they both have
the very same sensation
~ When you're lost
in the magic of his kiss
Something like that. That end thing
might not have been right.
But that's it.
Yes, love and fascination.
You said it, baby. [laughing]
Because that's the stuff, fascination,
which is the old black magic and the...
It's all connected.
That's mystique.
But that isn't necessarily reaI.
And that's what takes
a long time to figure out,
to separate one's gift from one's self.
[~ Chet Baker: Blame It On My Youth]
[man] Do your children know your music?
They're not really into music,
any of them that way, you know.
Although my oldest boy
by my second marriage, Halema...
He's supposed to have
a very, very nice voice.
- And, uh...
- Which boy is that?
He was born in 1957
by my second wife, Halema.
Halema Alli.
She was half Pakistani
and half Indian, East Indian.
[man] What's his name, Chet?
His name is Chesney Aftab Baker.
Aftab means "the son" in Indian.
I wrote a nice lullaby.
It's kind of pretty.
[humming lullaby]
[band playing lullaby]
[Baker] Most of the time he's travelling
around, doing some kind of work
for a couple of months here,
then going on to something else.
He doesn't know what he wants to do yet.
None of them do.
[Baker singing lullaby
in foreign language]
[man] PauI, do you see
your brother, Chesney, a lot?
About every year.
He comes through here with a new car
and with somebody else
I haven't met before.
- [Missy] A dog he's picked up.
- That he's picked up hitchhiking.
He's a nomad. He travels all the time.
He never settles down.
- One place to another.
- [Missy] Carefree.
He always just misses out
on seeing his dad, though.
He always manages to come down,
doesn't he, a week or two after.
When he finds out Chet has been
and gone he's always kind of upset.
Always misses out seeing him.
Wonder how long it's been
since he's seen Dad.
Chet never lets anyone know he's coming.
[V. Baker] He's crazy about pets.
He always has about three dogs.
[C. Baker] He picks them up
on the highway.
- [V. Baker] I think so.
- He's worked at different things.
I just tried to instiI in them...
...that, um...
...a good way to go, in this life,
is to find something
that you really enjoy doing.
And then learn to do it
better than anybody.
And you won't have any problems.
- [C.Baker laughs]
- [PauI] I love you, Dad.
Stay in touch.
Don't be such a stranger.
Quit screwing around. [laughing]
[man] We could use
some financiaI help, Dad.
[PauI] I think that ought to hit him.
[laughing]
[car door slams]
[laughing]
[indistinct chattering]
[woman singing in Italian]
[Baker] In this last 57 years
I must have lived severaI lifetimes.
I have a lot...
a lot of things to try yet.
I want to get this house
and have access to a piano,
which I've never had before,
and write some tunes.
And, uh...
Well, you know,
I've recorded over 900 tunes now.
They do have a kind of feeling
of bringing back certain moments
from the past.
Things that were played, things
that were said by different people.
A lot of which aren't here anymore.
So many of my friends have died
in the last ten years.
I guess beginning with about the time
Bill Evans went.
Well, before that, Al Haig...
...who was, I think,
only 50 years old, something like that.
Then PauI Desmond and Joe Farrell.
Sonny Stit, Art Pepper.
Zoot is gone.
[man] What's your
favourite kind of high?
Oh... golly.
The kind of high
that scares other people to death.
Yeah.
[man] What's that?
Oh, I guess they call it a speedball.
It's a mixture of cocaine and heroin.
If you've got the right mixture...
...um... not too much coke, you know,
because that first rush of coke...
...is, um... a devastating...
...feeling.
I mean, scary, you know.
[up-tempo jazz playing]
[Baker] We're gonna rehearse
from about 4.00 till 6.00
or 4.30 till 7.00 or something.
I want to take Diane
shopping before that.
[woman] What are you
gonna buy, clothes?
Well, I want to get her a little camera.
You know, not expensive. Something...
All those photographers following
that chick with the swimsuit.
[woman] See that girI?
What do you think, hot?
You like 'em big?
Hey, can't she get enough at the hoteI?
- You fiend.
- [laughter]
- [Baker] I'll drink to that.
- [woman] I'll drink to that.
- ... song coming up.
- [woman clapping] All right!
[Baker] Bring about
18 chocolate cream pies.
- [man] Hit me in the face with one?
- [Baker] No, anybody.
Just kind of start a small riot.
Why don't you serenade me?
[indistinct chatter]
[playing guitar]
[man] How can we run out of bread?
We've only been here one hour.
[Baker] Bread and butter and champagne.
Bread and butter and champagne.
[Baker] ~ Just friends
~ But not like before
~ To think of what we've been
~ Not to kiss again
~ Seems like pretending
~ It isn't the ending
~ Just friends
Lovers no more
~ Just friends
But not like before
~ To think of what we've been
~ And not to kiss again
Seems like pretending
~ It isn't the ending
~ Two friends drifting apart
~ Two friends, but one broken heart
~ We love, we laugh, we cry
~ Suddenly love died
The story ended
~ But we're just friends
~ Two friends drifting apart
~ Two friends
But one broken heart
~ We loved, we laughed, we cried
~ Suddenly love died
The story ended
~ But we're just friends ~
[loud chattering]
[applause]
[woman] Chet, sing us another song.
So many people here never heard you
before, and will never hear you again.
- Oh.
- And it's so beautifuI.
- Well...
- Please, Chet.
- I'm not dead yet.
- [indistinct chattering]
[man] So how's it going, Chet?
It's going OK. People couldn't
care less about the music.
- No.
- [man] It sounds pretty good.
They're still applauding
after each number.
No, no.
Compared to the...
Compared to the New Morning in Paris,
which holds almost this many people.
And you can hear a pin drop...
...when we play, you know.
That's the difference.
[man] Well, this is a festivaI crowd.
Yeah. It's the worst possible crowd
you can play for.
- It's possible you want to play?
- Try and get the crowd back.
Uh-huh.
I need some cigarettes.
I gotta get some cigarettes somewhere.
[cheering]
We've come to that time in the evening
when there's not much time left.
The tune is called Almost Blue,
and we'd appreciate it
if you could kind of...
...try to be quiet, because
it's that kind of tune, you know.
~ Almost blue
~ Almost doing things
we used to do
~ There's a girl here
~ And she's almost you
~ Almost
~ All the things
~ You promised with your eyes
~ I see in hers too
~ Now your eyes are red
~ From cryin'
~ Almost blue
~ Flirting with this disaster
~ Became me
~ It named me as a fool
~ Who only aimed to be
~ Almost blue
~ Almost touching it
will almost do
~ There's a part of me
~ That's always true
~ Always
~ All the things
~ That you promised with your eyes
~ I see in hers too
~ Now your eyes are red
~ From crying
~ Almost you
~ Almost me
~ Almost
~ Blue ~
- Thank you.
- [cheering]
Thank you.
[man] Now, Chet, you've run out
of your Methadone.
We've made arrangements
with your doctor in Amsterdam
to get you some more.
You're feeling sick and desperate
these last couple of days.
But it's been so painfuI
to see you like this.
Well, Bruce, you want me to leveI
with you and tell you the truth.
But in doing that it only creates pain
on your part, you know.
And, uh...
...uh, this is a big drag,
and completely unnecessary.
Because, uh...
...I am 57 years old.
And, you know, uh...
...there's just no other way I could...
...get through these last five days.
There was no other way.
Now you've set this thing up.
But that's...
I didn't know that would be possible.
I hope everything will be all right.
[Weber] One more thing, Chet.
Will you look back on this film,
in years to come,
and think of it as good times?
How the hell else
could I see it, Bruce?
How the hell else could I see it?
Santa Monica, that scene.
And that hoteI.
And the bar and the bump cars.
And the...
In the studio, on the beach...
It was so beautifuI, all those things.
It was a dream, you know.
Things like that don't happen.
Just to very few.
[man speaking Italian]
[woman speaking Italian]
~ Arrivederci
~ Wipe off that tear as I whisper
~ Till we meet again
~ Arrivederci
~ Though it's goodbye forever
~ Let's pretend
~ We dared love to catch us
~ And always laughed
~ At romancing
~ Now we must realise we're...
[speaking Italian]
~ Our sunny days are over
~ Now is the time
~ To part
~ Kiss me again
~ For the last time
~ Darling, forgive me for getting
~ I'm stepping out from your life
~ Arrivederci
[playing trumpet]
~ Arrivederci
~ We knew it was not forever
~ From the very start
~ Arrivederci
~ Our sunny days are over
~ Now's the time to part
~ Kiss me again for the last time
~ Darling, forgive me, forget me
~ I'm stepping out from your life
~ Arrivederci
~ Aah ~
[birds chirping]