1950's The Arts | As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir

Autobiography

By: Chet Baker

Date: 1997

Source: Baker, Chet. As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997, 6–9, 13–15, 56.

About the Artist: Chesney Henry ("Chet") Baker (1929–1988) was a musician whose playing came to epitomize the West Coast "cool jazz" style. He was born in Yale, Oklahoma, and began playing the trumpet at age 13. In the 1950s he performed with other jazz greats such as Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins. He became popular as a vocalist, singing love ballads that, combined with his youthful good looks, made him enormously appealing to fans of both sexes. Baker's music career nearly ended in the 1960s when he had his front teeth knocked out after a botched drug deal. He died in Amsterdam, and in the early twenty-first century is considered a cult jazz figure.

Introduction

Baker's father, Chesney Henry...