Look up estate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Estate may refer to:

• Estate (law), a term in common law for a person's property, entitlements and obligations.
• Estates of the realm, a broad social category in the histories of certain countries.
• Estate (land), the grounds and tenancies (such as farms, housing, woodland, parkland) associated with a very large property.
  • Housing estate, a group of houses built as a single development.
  • Industrial estate, and trading estate, property planned and sublet for industrial and commercial use.
• Estate, a brand of major appliances, first from RCA, afterwards from Whirlpool Corporation.
• Estate car, passenger car with a full-size back cargo compartment, a station wagon.
• Estate (song), a 1960 Italian song and jazz standard.
• Estate (album), a jazz piano album by Michel Petrucciani.
• Estate, Information Technology term for a set of computers and other technology infrastructure, generally the total set owned by a corporation, as in "Estate Management." See ITIL and other standards.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

João Gilberto
Background information
Birth name	João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira
Born	(1931-06-10) June 10, 1931 (age 81)
Origin	Juazeiro, Bahia, Brazil
Genres	Bossa nova, Samba, Brazilian jazz, Latin jazz
Occupations	Guitarist, singer, Songwriter
Instruments	Singer, guitarist
Years active	1950–present
Notable instruments
Guitar

João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʒwɐ̃w ʒiwˈbɛʁtu];^[1] June 10, 1931), is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. His seminal recordings, including many songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, established the new musical genre of Bossa nova in the late 1950s.

Biography[link]

João Gilberto was born in Juazeiro, Bahia. From an early age, music was a part of Gilberto's life. His grandfather bought him his first guitar at the age of 14. During high school, Gilberto teamed up with some of his classmates to form a small band. Gilberto, who led the band, was influenced by Brazilian popular songs, American jazz, and even some opera, among other genres. After trying his luck as a radio singer in Salvador, Bahia, the young Gilberto was recruited in 1950 as lead singer of the vocal quintet Garotos da Lua (Moon Boys) and moved to Rio de Janeiro. A year and a half later, he was dismissed from the group for his lack of discipline (he would often show up late to rehearsals or not at all).

João Gilberto's first recordings were released in Brazil as two-song 78-rpm singles between 1951 and 1959. In the 1960s, Brazilian singles evolved to the "double compact" format, and João would release some EPs in this new format, which carried 4 songs on a 45-rpm record.

For seven years, Gilberto's career was at a low ebb. He rarely had any work, was dependent on his friends for living quarters, and fell into chronic depression. Eventually, in 1955 he was rescued from this rut by Luiz Telles, leader of the vocal group Quitandinha Serenaders, who took him to Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. In this provincial town João Gilberto blossomed musically. Next he spent eight months with his sister in Diamantina, Minas Gerais,^[2] where he sequestered himself and played day and night in a little bathroom (because of the improved acoustic), forging a personal style for voice and guitar that would come to be known as bossa nova. The first bossa nova song, titled "Bim-Bom", was written as Gilberto watched passing laundresses on the banks of the São Francisco River balance loads of clothes on their heads.

Just after this time Gilberto's father, upset by João's bizarre singing style and refusal to take "normal" work, committed him to a mental hospital. In a psychological interview there, Gilberto stared out the window and remarked, “Look at the wind depilating the trees.” The psychologist replied, “But trees have no hair, João,” to which Gilberto responded, “And there are people who have no poetry.” He was released after a week. The next year (1956) he returned to Rio and struck up old acquaintances, most significantly Antonio Carlos Jobim, who was by then working as a composer, producer and arranger with Odeon Records. Jobim was impressed with Gilberto's new style of guitar playing, and set about finding a suitable song to pitch the style to Odeon management.

Bossa nova ("new style") is a refined version of samba, de-emphasizing the percussive aspect of its rhythm and enriching the melodic and harmonic content. Rather than relying on the traditional Afro-Brazilian percussive instruments, João Gilberto often eschews all accompaniment except his guitar, which he uses as a percussive as well as a harmonic instrument, incorporating the parts of different samba percussion instruments such as the tamborim and the surdo from a full batucada band. The singing style he developed is almost whispering, economical, and without vibrato. He creates his tempo tensions by singing ahead or behind the beat.

This style, which Gilberto introduced in 1957, created a sensation in the musical circles of Rio's Zona Sul, and many young guitarists sought to imitate it. It was first heard on record in 1958 in a recording of "Chega de Saudade", a song by Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. Gilberto had first accompanied singer Elizeth Cardoso as her guitarist in a recording of this song, explaining his vision for the new style, but Cardoso would have none of his singing advice and sung it in the standard way. But shortly after this recording, João Gilberto made his own debut single of the same song, in the new style, followed by the 1959 LP, Chega de Saudade. The song () turned into a hit, launching Gilberto's career and the bossa nova craze. Besides a number of Jobim compositions, the album featured older sambas and popular songs from the 1940s and 1950s, all performed in Gilberto's distinctive style. This album was followed by two more in 1960 and 1961, by which time the singer featured new songs by a younger generation of performer/composers such as Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal.

By 1962, bossa nova had been embraced by North American jazz musicians such as Herbie Mann, Charlie Byrd, and Stan Getz, who invited Gilberto and Jobim to collaborate on what became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, Getz/Gilberto. Through this album, Gilberto's then wife Astrud -- who had never sung professionally prior to this recording session^[3] -- became an international star, and the Jobim/de Moraes composition "The Girl from Ipanema" became a worldwide pop music standard.

João Gilberto lived in the United States from 1962 until 1969, when he moved to Mexico for two years. There he recorded João Gilberto en México (1970). João Gilberto, aka the "White Album" (1973), featured hypnotic minimalist execution, limited to the singer, his guitar, and Sonny Carr on drums. 1976 saw the release of The Best of Two Worlds, a reunion with Stan Getz, featuring singer Miúcha, (sister of Chico Buarque), who had become Gilberto's second wife in April 1965. Amoroso (1977) backed Gilberto with the lush string orchestration of Claus Ogerman, who had provided a similar sound to Jobim's instrumental recordings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As had been the case for all of Gilberto's albums, the album consisted mostly of Jobim compositions, mixed with older sambas and an occasional North American standard from the 1940s.

João Gilberto returned to Brazil in 1980. The following year saw the release of Brasil, with guests Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, who in the late 1960s had founded the Tropicalia movement, a fusion of Brazilian popular music with foreign pop. The 1991 release João, with orchestrations by Clare Fischer, was unusual in its lack of even a single Jobim composition, instead featuring songs in English, French, Italian, and Spanish, plus old sambas and the solitary contemporary song "Sampa" (Caetano Veloso). Also released in 1991 was the album Canto do Pajé by Veloso's sister Maria Bethânia, on which Bethânia and Gilberto sing an intimate medley of "Maria" (Ary Barroso/Luiz Peixoto) and "Linda Flor"' (Henrique Vogeler/Luiz Peixoto/Marques Pôrto), accompanied solely by his guitar. João Voz e Violão (2000) was an homage to the music of Gilberto's youth as well as a nod to producer Caetano Veloso.

Evenly interspersed with these studio recordings have been the live recordings Live in Montreux; João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira; Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar; Live at Umbria Jazz; and Live in Tokyo.

While all of Gilberto's albums since Getz/Gilberto have been released on CD, the first three domestic albums were released in 1988 by EMI on a single CD entitled The Legendary João Gilberto: The Original Bossa Nova Recordings (1958–1961). The disc also included three tracks from the singer's 1959 Orfeu Negro EP: "Manhã de Carnaval," O Nosso Amor, and A Felicidade, the latter two merged into a single medley track to fit within the recording time of a CD. After its release, Gilberto successfully sued to have the title removed from sale as an unauthorized release of his artistic works.

João Gilberto has long had a reputation as an artist who values his privacy. He lives in an apartment in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, refusing interviews and avoiding crowds. He also has high standards for acoustics and noise control. He has been known to walk out on performances in response to audiences that interfere with the music by creating inappropriate noise, or out of theaters possessing poor acoustics; on several occasions he requested that the air conditioning be turned off at concert venues. During a recording session of the song "Rosa Morena" Gilberto insisted on 28 takes to get the pronunciation of the 'O' in "Rosa" just right.

He continues to perform, very occasionally, to sell-out crowds in Brazil as well as in Europe, North America, and Japan. His planned public performances in Madrid (2009) and New York (2010) were cancelled at short notice. He is the father of singer Bebel Gilberto (Isabel), via his marriage to Miúcha.

In 1997, João sued record label EMI over a reissuing of several of his early works which he contended were poorly remastered. According to The New York Times, "A statement by his lawyer at the time declared that the reissues contained sound effects that 'did not pertain to the original recordings, banalizing the work of a great artist.'" Following the incident, EMI ceased to manufacture the albums in question, and, as of 2008, the lawsuit is yet to reach a decision.

Eviction[link]

In January 2011, Gilberto was notified by the State Court to leave his apartment in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, where he has lived for fifteen years. According to the property owner's lawyer Paulo Roberto Moreira Mendes, the property belongs to Georgina Brandolini d'Adda, who criticizes the eccentric behavior of the musician.^{[citation needed]}

Discography[link]

• 1951: Quando Você Recordar/Amar é Bom
• 1951: Anjo Crue/Sem Elal
• 1952: Quando Ela Sai/Meia Luz
• 1958: Chega de Saudade/Bim Bom
• 1958: Desafinado/Hô-bá-lá-lá
• 1959: Chega de Saudade
• 1960: O Amor, o Sorriso e a Flor
• 1961: João Gilberto
• 1961: Brazil's Brilliant João Gilberto
• 1962: João Gilberto Cantando as Musicás do Filme Orfeo do Carnaval
• 1962: Boss of Bossa Nova
• 1962: Bossa Nova at Carnegie Hall
• 1963: The Warm World of João Gilberto
• 1964: Getz/Gilberto
• 1965: Herbie Mann & João Gilberto with Antonio Carlos Jobim
• 1966: Getz/Gilberto Vol. 2
• 1970: João Gilberto en Mexico
• 1973: João Gilberto
• 1976: The Best of Two Worlds
• 1977: Amoroso
• 1977: Gilberto and Jobim
• 1980: João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira
• 1981: Brasil
• 1985: Interpreta Tom Jobim
• 1985: Meditação
• 1986: Live in Montreux
• 1987: Live in Montreux
• 1988: O Mito
• 1990: Stan Getz meets João & Astrud Gilberto
• 1991: João
• 1994: Eu Sei que Vou Te Amar
• 2000: João Voz e Violão
• 2002: Live at Umbria Jazz
• 2004: In Tokyo

-João Gilberto's first five records released from 1951-1958 were all 78 rpm single editions.

-The album João Gilberto released in 1970 is the same version as João Gilberto en Mexico in the same year but by different record companies.

-Live in Montreux from 1987 is the same version as the one released in 1986. The version in 1986 was released in Brasil whereas the 1987 one was released in USA. Both were recorded live.

References[link]

• [3], "João Gilberto's Pioneering Bossa Nova Records Are Caught In a Legal Limbo" by The New York Times
• [4], "The Man Who Invented Bossa Nova" by Daniella Thompson

Sources[link]

• Castro, Ruy (trans. by Lysa Salsbury). "Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World." 2000. 1st English language edition. A Capella Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press, Inc. ISBN 1-55652-409-9 First published in Brasil by Companhia das Letras. 1990.
• McGowan, Chris and Pessanha, Ricardo. "The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil." 1998. 2nd edition. Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-545-3
• Gridley, Mark. Jazz Styles: History and Analysis. 9th. NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, Print.

External links[link]

• Plain João—The Man Who Invented Bossa Nova, a biographical profile by Daniella Thompson
• João Gilberto Discography by Laura Pelner McCarthy
• João Gilberto Discography by SomBras (meanwhile a dead link)
• Nos bastidores do legendario concerto da bossa nova 1962
• The Brazilian Sound: Brazilian Music & Culture Website
• Bossa Nova Guitar Transcriptions (Mostly of songs performed by João Gilberto)
• João Gilberto Discography on Slipcue.com
• Joao Gilberto: The Early Records a special on Gilberto at the blog Worlds of Wanwood

Bruno Martino (November 11, 1925—June 28, 2000) was an Italian jazz composer, singer and pianist. Internationally he was mostly known for Estate, composed in 1960, a standard that has been played many jazz performers since the early 1960s, including João Gilberto, Joe Diorio, Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans, Shirley Horn, Michel Petrucciani, Monty Alexander and Mike Stern.

Martino's early working life was spent in European radio and night club orchestras, later composing for popular Italian singers and touring the world with his own orchestra. He had a late-blossoming career as a singer.^[1]

Dracula Cha Cha Cha[link]

Bruno Martino's song Dracula Cha Cha Cha appears on the album Italian Graffiti (1960/61) and is performed onscreen in Vincente Minnelli's film Two Weeks in Another Town (1962).

It inspired the title of Kim Newman's novel Dracula Cha Cha Cha (1998), which takes place in Rome, 1959.

Web sources[link]

This article about an Italian composer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Shirley Horn
Shirley Horn in 1995.
Background information
Birth name	Shirley Valerie Horn
Born	(1934-05-01)1 May 1934
Origin	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Died	20 October 2005(2005-10-20) (aged 71)
Genres	Jazz Blues music
Occupations	Singer Pianist
Instruments	Vocals Piano
Years active	1959-2004
Labels	Stere-o-craft (1960) Mercury (1963) ABC-Paramount (1965) Perception (1972) SteepleChase (1978-81) CBS (1985) Verve (1987-2005)
Associated acts	Miles Davis Charles Ables Steve Williams

Shirley Valerie Horn (May 1, 1934 in Washington, D.C. – October 20, 2005) was an American jazz singer and pianist.^[1]

Horn collaborated with many jazz greats including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Ron Carter, Carmen McRae, Wynton Marsalis and others. She was most noted for her ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence and ability on the piano while singing, something described by arranger Johnny Mandel as "like having two heads", and for her rich, lush voice, a smoky contralto, which was described by noted producer and arranger Quincy Jones as "like clothing, as she seduces you with her voice". Although she could swing as strongly as any straight-ahead jazz artist, Horn's reputation rode on her exquisite ballad work.

Biography[link]

Encouraged by her grandmother, who was an amateur organist, Horn began piano lessons at the age of four.^[2] At twelve, Horn studied piano and composition at Howard University and later majored from there in classical music.^[2] Horn was offered a place at the Juilliard School, but her family could not afford to send her there.^[2] Horn formed her first Jazz piano trio when she was twenty.^[2] Horn's early piano influences were Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal, and moving away from her classical background, Horn later said that "Oscar Peterson became my Rachmaninov, and Ahmad Jamal became my Debussy."^[2] She then became enamored with the famous U Street jazz area of Washington (largely destroyed in the 1968 riots), sneaking into jazz clubs before she was of legal age.

Horn first achieved fame in 1960, when Miles Davis "discovered" her. Davis' praise had particular resonance in two respects, one because he was so highly respected as a musician, and two because he rarely had anything positive to publicly offer about any musician at that time. Shirley had, though, recorded several songs with violinist Stuff Smith in 1959 both as a pianist and a singer. After her discovery by Davis, she recorded albums on different small labels in the early 1960s, eventually landing contracts with larger labels Mercury Records and Impulse Records. She was popular with jazz critics, but did not achieve significant popular success.

Quincy Jones attempted to make Horn into a pure vocalist in several recording sessions, something he later hinted may have been a mistake. Horn was also disturbed by the changes in popular music in the 1960s following the arrival of The Beatles, and stated "I will not stoop to conquer" in largely rejecting efforts to remake her into a popular singer. From the late-1960s, she concentrated on raising her daughter Rainy with her husband, Shepherd Deering (whom she had married in 1955), and largely limited her performances to her native Washington, D.C., while she often worked full-time as an office worker.

Preferring to perform in small settings, as with her trio, she recorded with orchestra too, as on the 1992 album Here's to Life, which is highly rated by her fans, the title song (lyrics by Phyllis Molinary, music by Artie Butler) being generally considered as her signature song. Arranger Johnny Mandel won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) for that album. A video documentary of Horn's life and music was released at the same time as "Here's To Life" and shared its title. At the time, Mandel commented that Horn's piano skill was comparable to that of the noted jazz great Bill Evans. A follow-up was made in 2001, named You're My Thrill.

Shirley Horn kept for twenty five years the same rhythm section: Charles Ables (bass) and Steve Williams (drums). Don Heckman wrote in the Los Angeles Times (February 2, 1995) about "the importance of bassist Charles Ables and drummer Steve Williams to Horn's sound. Working with boundless subtlety, following her every spontaneous twist and turn, they were the ideal accompanists for a performer who clearly will tolerate nothing less than perfection".

Due to health problems in the early 2000s, Horn had to cut back on her appearances. After 2002, a foot amputation (from complications of diabetes) forced her to leave the piano playing to pianist George Mesterhazy. In late 2004, Horn felt able to play piano again, and recorded a live album for Verve, at Manhattan's Au Bar with trumpet player Roy Hargrove, which did not satisfy her. It remains unreleased except for three tracks on But Beautiful - The Best of Shirley Horn.

She had been battling breast cancer and diabetes when she died of a massive stroke, aged 71. She is interred at Ft. Lincoln Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

Awards & honors[link]

Horn was nominated for nine Grammy Awards during her career, winning the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance at the 41st Grammy Awards for I Remember Miles, a tribute to her friend and mentor.

She was officially recognized by the 109th US Congress for "her many achievements and contributions to the world of jazz and American culture", and performed at The White House for several U.S. presidents. Horn was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music in 2002.

She was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award in 2005 (the highest honors that the United States bestows upon jazz musicians).

Discography[link]

As leader[link]

• 1960: Embers and Ashes
• 1961: Live at the Village Vanguard (live)
• 1963: Loads of Love (Mercury)
• 1963: Shirley Horn with Horns (Mercury)
• 1965: Travelin' Light (ABC-Paramount)
• 1973: Where Are You Going (Perception)
• 1978: A Lazy Afternoon
• 1981: All Night Long (live)
• 1981: Violets for Your Furs (live)
• 1984: Garden of the Blues (live)
• 1987: All of Me
• 1987: Softly
• 1987: I Thought About You (Verve, live)
• 1989: Close Enough for Love (Verve)
• 1991: You Won't Forget Me (Verve, with Miles Davis)
• 1992: Here's to Life (Verve)
• 1993: Light Out of Darkness (A Tribute to Ray Charles) (Verve)
• 1994: I Love You, Paris (Verve, live)
• 1994: Live at the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival (Verve, live, released 2008)
• 1996: The Main Ingredient (Verve)
• 1997: Loving You (Verve)
• 1998: I Remember Miles (Verve)
• 1999: Quiet Now: Come a Little Closer (compilation) (Verve)
• 1999: Ultimate Shirley Horn (compilation) (Verve)
• 2001: You're My Thrill (Verve)
• 2003: May the Music Never End (Verve)

As sideman[link]

With Charlie Haden

• The Art of the Song (1999)

With Antonio Carlos Jobim

• Antonio Carlos Jobim and Friends (live, 1985)

With The Legacy Band

• The Legacy Lives On, Vol. 1 (2000)

With Carmen McRae

• Sarah: Dedicated to You (1991)

With Oscar Peterson

• A Tribute to Oscar Peterson – Live at the Town Hall (Telarc, live, 1996)

With Jeffery Smith

• Ramona (Verve, 1995)

With Stuff Smith

• Cat on a Hot Fiddle (Verve, 1959)

With Clark Terry

• Clark Terry Quintet: Live On QE2 (2001, live)

With Toots Thielemans

• For My Lady (1991)

With Joe Williams

• In Good Company (Verve, 1989)

References[link]

External links[link]

• NEA Jazz Masters biography
• Artist Page at Verve Music
• Shirley Horn Discography at www.JazzDiscography.com
• Washington Post obituary October 22, 2005
• BBC News: Jazz star Shirley Horn dies at 71
• H.CON.RES.300
• Shirley Horn's Jazz Profile at NPR
• Shirley Horn in 2002 on WBUR-FM The Connection
• VOA "Special English" program on Shirley Horn (2005)
• NEA Jazz Masters video biography of Shirley Horn

Chet Baker
Background information
Birth name	Chesney Henry Baker, Jr.
Born	(1929-12-23)December 23, 1929 Yale, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	May 13, 1988(1988-05-13) (aged 58) Amsterdam, Netherlands
Genres	West Coast Jazz
Occupations	Trumpeter Jazz singer
Instruments	Trumpet Vocals Flugelhorn Piano[1]
Years active	1949–1988[2]
Associated acts	Gerry Mulligan Art Pepper

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.

In the 1950s, Baker earned much attention and critical praise, particularly for albums featuring his vocals, such as Chet Baker Sings. Jazz historian David Gelly descibed the promise of Baker's early career as seemingly representing "James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one."^[3] However, his "well-publicized drug habit"^[4] also drove his notoriety and fame, as Baker was in-and-out of jail for much of his life before enjoying a career resurgence in the late 1970s and '80s.

Baker died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.^[5]

Biography[link]

Early days[link]

Baker was born and raised in a musical household in Yale, Oklahoma; his father was a professional guitar player. Baker began his musical career singing in a church choir. His father introduced him to brass instruments with a trombone, which was replaced with a trumpet when the trombone proved too large.

Baker received some musical education at Glendale Junior High School, but left school at age 16 in 1946 to join the United States Army. He was posted to Berlin where he joined the 298th Army band. Leaving the army in 1948, he studied theory and harmony at El Camino College in Los Angeles. He dropped out in his second year, however, re-enlisting in the army in 1950. Baker became a member of the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco, but was soon spending time in San Francisco jazz clubs such as Bop City and the Black Hawk. Baker once again obtained a discharge from the army to pursue a career as a professional musician.

Career breakthrough[link]

Baker's earliest notable professional gigs were with saxophonist Vido Musso's band, and also with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, though he earned much more renown in 1951 when he was chosen by Charlie Parker to play with him for a series of West Coast engagements.^[6]

In 1952, Baker joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which was an instant phenomenon. Several things made the Mulligan/Baker group special, the most prominent being the interplay between Mulligan's baritone sax and Baker's trumpet. Rather than playing identical melody lines in unison like bebop giants Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the two would complement each other's playing with contrapuntal touches, and it often seemed as if they had telepathy in anticipating what the other was going to play next. The Quartet's version of "My Funny Valentine", featuring a memorable Baker solo, was a major hit, and became a song with which Baker was intimately associated.

The Quartet found success quickly, but lasted less than a year because of Mulligan's arrest and imprisonment on drug charges. In 1956, Pacific Jazz released Chet Baker Sings, a record that increased his profile but alienated traditional jazz fans; he would continue to sing throughout his career. Baker formed quartets with Russ Freeman in 1953-54 with bassists Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon, and Jimmy Bond and drummers Shelly Manne, Larry Bunker, and Bob Neel. The quartet was successful in their three live sets in 1954. In that year, Baker won the Downbeat Jazz Poll. Because of his chiseled features, Hollywood studios approached Baker and he made his acting debut in the film Hell's Horizon, released in the fall of 1955. He declined an offer of a studio contract, preferring life on the road as a musician. Over the next few years, Baker fronted his own combos, including a 1955 quintet featuring Francy Boland, where Baker combined playing trumpet and singing. He became an icon of the West Coast "cool school" of jazz, helped by his good looks and singing talent. Baker's 1956 recording, released for the first time in its entirety in 1989 as The Route, with Art Pepper helped further the West Coast jazz sound and became a staple of cool jazz.

Drug addiction and decline[link]

Baker was a heroin user from the 1950s for the remainder of his life, and eventually saw his musical career decline as a result. At times, Baker pawned his instruments for money to maintain his drug habit. In the early 1960s, he served more than a year in prison in Italy on drug charges; he was later expelled from both West Germany and the UK for drug-related offenses. Baker was eventually deported from West Germany to the United States after running afoul of the law there a second time. He settled in Milpitas in northern California where he played in San Jose and San Francisco between short jail terms served for prescription fraud.^[5]

In 1966, Baker was savagely beaten (allegedly while attempting to buy drugs) after a gig in San Francisco, sustaining severe cuts on the lips and broken front teeth, which ruined his embouchure. He stated in the film Let's Get Lost that an acquaintance attempted to rob him one night but backed off, only to return the next night with a group of several men who chased him. He landed finally in a car where he was surrounded. Instead of rescuing him, the people inside the car pushed him back out onto the street where the chase by his attackers continued, and subsequently, he was beaten to the point that his teeth, never in good condition to begin with, were knocked out, leaving him without the ability to play his horn. He took odd jobs, among them pumping gas. Meanwhile he was fitted for dentures and worked on his embouchure. Three months later he got a gig in New York.

Between 1966 and 1974, Baker mostly played flugelhorn and recorded music that could mostly be classified as West Coast jazz.^[5]

Comeback and later career[link]

After developing a new embouchure resulting from dentures, Baker returned to the straight-ahead jazz that began his career, relocating to New York City and began performing and recording again, notably with guitarist Jim Hall. Later in the seventies, Baker returned to Europe where he was assisted by his friend Diane Vavra, who took care of his personal needs and otherwise helped him during his recording and performance dates.

From 1978 until his death in 1988, Baker resided and played almost exclusively in Europe, returning to the USA roughly once per year for a few performance dates.

Chet Baker with Stan Getz in 1983

This was Baker's most prolific era as a recording artist. However, as his extensive output is strewn across numerous, mostly small European labels, none of these recordings ever reached a wider audience, even though many of them were well-received by critics, who maintain that the period was one of Baker's most mature and rewarding. Of particular importance are Baker's quartet featuring the pianist Phil Markowitz (1978–80) and his trio with guitarist Philip Catherine and bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse (1983–85). He also toured with saxophonist Stan Getz during this period.

In 1983, British singer Elvis Costello, a longtime fan of Baker, hired the trumpeter to play a solo on his song "Shipbuilding", from the album Punch the Clock. The song was a top 40 hit in the UK, and exposed Baker's music to a new audience. Later, Baker often featured Costello's song "Almost Blue" (inspired by Baker's version of "The Thrill Is Gone") in his live sets, and recorded the song on Let's Get Lost, a documentary film about his life.

The video material recorded by Japanese television during Baker's 1987 tour in Japan showed a man whose face looked much older than he was; but his trumpet playing was alert, lively and inspired. Fans and critics alike agree that the live album Chet Baker in Tokyo, recorded less than a year before his death and released posthumously, ranks among Baker's very best. "Silent Nights", another critically acclaimed release, and Baker's only recording of Christmas music, was recorded with Christopher Mason in New Orleans in 1986 and released in 1987.

Chet Baker's compositions included "Chetty's Lullaby", "Freeway", "Early Morning Mood", "Two a Day", "So Che Ti Perderò" ("I Know I Will Lose You"), "Il Mio Domani" ("My Tomorrow"), "Motivo Su Raggio Di Luna" ("Tune on a Moon Beam"), "The Route", "Skidadidlin'", "New Morning Blues", "Blue Gilles", "Dessert", and "Anticipated Blues".

Death[link]

At about 3 am on May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on Prins Hendrikkade, near Zeedijk, on the street below his second-story room (Room 210) of Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with serious wounds to his head. Heroin and cocaine were found in his hotel room, and an autopsy also found these drugs in his body. There was no evidence of a struggle, and the death was ruled an accident.

Baker's body was brought home for interment in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California, USA. A plaque outside the Hotel Prins Hendrik now memorializes him.

Legacy[link]

Plaque in Amsterdam

Jeroen de Valk has written a biography of Baker which is available in several languages: Chet Baker: His Life and Music is the English translation, Chet Baker: Herinneringen aan een lyrisch trompettist (remembrances of a lyrical trumpet player) is the Dutch edition (updated and expanded in 2007),^[7] and it is also published in Japan and Germany. James Gavin has also written a biography: Deep In A Dream — The Long Night of Chet Baker. Baker's "lost memoirs" are available in the book As Though I Had Wings, which includes an introduction by Carol Baker.^[5]

Baker was immortalized by the photographer William Claxton in his book Young Chet: The Young Chet Baker. An Academy Award-nominated 1988 documentary about Baker, Let's Get Lost, portrays him as a cultural icon of the 1950s, but juxtaposes this with his later image as a drug addict. The film, directed by fashion photographer Bruce Weber, was shot in black-and-white and includes a series of interviews with friends, family (including his three children by third wife Carol Baker), associates and women friends, interspersed with film from Baker's earlier life, and with interviews with Baker from his last years.

Time after Time: The Chet Baker Project, written by playwright James O'Reilly, toured Canada in 2001 to much acclaim.^[8] The musical play Chet Baker - Speedball, explores aspects of his life and music, and was premiered in London at the Oval House Theatre in February 2007, with further development of the script and performances leading to its revival at the 606 Club in the London Jazz Festival of November 2007.

Baker was reportedly the inspiration for the character Chad Bixby, played by Robert Wagner in the 1960 film All the Fine Young Cannibals. He was also the inspiration for the lead character in Fabrizio Federico's film Black Biscuit. Another film, to be titled Prince of Cool, about Baker's life, was cancelled as of January 2008.^[9]

The song "Chet Baker", which appears on the 2007 CD Wally Page and Johnny Mulhern: Live at the Annesley House, by Irish folk singer-songwriter Wally Page, describes the end of Baker's life in Amsterdam.

Honors[link]

• In 1987 he was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
• In 1989 he was elected to Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame by that magazine's Critics Poll.
• In 1991 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.
• In 2005 Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry and the Oklahoma House of Representatives proclaimed July 2 as “Chet Baker Day”.
• In 2007 Mayor of the City of Tulsa Kathy Taylor proclaimed December 23 as “Chet Baker Day”.

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Chet Baker Foundation
• Chet Baker at the Internet Movie Database
• Chet Baker at Find a Grave
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Baker, Chet