[Jazz & Song] Baker, Chet. (1929 - 1988)
Important Archive of Letters, Original Photographs, Address Books and Ephemera, including a Suicide Note
‘‘He was one of the first generation of masters who created the powerful American urban music that came to be called bebop. He was the last of them to remain faithful to heroin, long after the others had cleaned up or died young. It was a love affair more than a habit.’’ (Chet Baker Obituary by Mike Zwerin, International Herald Tribune)An important and harrowing archive illustrating the hard life of the celebrated American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and vocalist. Baker was known for the clarity and ease of his tone as a trumpeter, and the preternatural calm, quiet, and reflectiveness of his singing, the way in which he could, “somehow,” as the Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi puts it, “express the question mark of life in so few notes." Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals (Chet Baker Sings, It Could Happen to You) and Jazz historian David Gelly has described the promise of Baker's early career as "James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one." But Baker began using heroin in the 1950s, resulting in an addiction that lasted the remainder of his life, landing him in and out of jail and partly driving his notoriety and fame. His career enjoyed a resurgence in the late 1970s and '80s, during which time he lived in Europe, recording and touring, for most of the ten years prior to his death. On May 13, 1988 Baker was found dead on the street below his second-story room of Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam, in what was almost certainly a suicide, but ruled an accidental if drug-induced fall.
The present archive includes letters, photographs, ephemera and personal effects mostly from the last ten years of Baker's life, all from the collection of his longtime companion Diane Vavra. The history of this relationship is extensively documented in, among others, James Gavin's "Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker" (Chicago Review, 2011), in which some of the present items - including the suicide letter (p. 347) - are discussed in detail.
The archive includes 14 autograph letters, densely written on 25 sides, mostly on various hotel stationary paper, generally signed "Chet." These letters provide a fascinating if painful account of Baker's late life and career, with mentions of his many tour dates, media appearances, and recording sessions, but also including very personal outpourings of his feelings for Vavra, which are at times very intimate and sexually explicit. During these years, as the letters painfully illustrate, when Vavra would return to her home in California, Baker wrestled with deep depression and sadness. In one letter, Baker apologizes "I'm so sorry that I haven't phoned but I've been running back and forth between S. Cruz and the city, trying to make at least some free grass by turning some hash." In another he writes "It's still dark out, just a touch of light in the east. It's raining lightly; anyway, when I stepped out of 'Ali's' on to the wet cobblestones my thoughts went to you and how wonderful it would be to have you here, to go for walks in the rain. I miss you. I'm lying in bed listening to the tape I recorded of the radio broadcast we did tonight..." An unsigned three-page letter dated June 30th, 1986, is a plea for Vavra to return to him, asking her to "sit down and write me concerning the things that you feel in your heart" and explaining that "in the interview that I had with Francois Sagan, she seemed very interested in our relationship, and she ask [sic] me one question which particularly made me think a lot about us..." The most poignant letter is an undated suicide note which reads in full: "To who-ever finds and reads this note. I've been trying to kill myself for a month by shooting speed balls with large quantities of cocain and heroin. I'm now down to about 120 lbs. and not looking well. Since Diane decided against me I haven't wanted to live. Without her I feel nothing except for the music. Thats what I hang on to. Sincerely, Chet Baker."
Also included in the archive are the following:
Original 1986 Japanese visa application completed by Baker in advance of a tour, boldly signed in blue ink "Chesney H. Baker (Chet Baker)".
Undated original contract between photographer Bruce Weber and Baker, for the use of a Baker recording in Weber's film "Broken Noses." The film was released in 1987, one year before Weber's Academy Award-nominated documentary on Baker, "Let's Get Lost." The contract is boldly signed by both Baker and Weber in black felt tip. Also included are promotional postcards from films about Baker and the 1989 Film Forum flyer which announces the US premiere of Let's Get Lost.
82 original photographs, various sizes and formats from 3 x 5 to 12 x 18 inches, color and black & white, 1970s - 80s, including images of Baker in performance and rehearsal, as well as personal and unique private photographs including many of a very gaunt Baker practicing shirtless in his hotel room, many of Baker with Vavra including earlier images of a healthier and happier Baker, and original prints signed or stamped by photographers from across Europe such as Dan Kellman, Dorman Laszlo, Jacky Lepage, Jurgen de Waal, T. Nectoux, Gunnar Holberg, Michel Lionnet etc. On the verso of a partially torn image of Baker and Vavra, Baker has written "Just so you won't forget what I look like. God made you for me Diane / tell me it's true." A series of three photographs by Judy Lee of San Jose, CA depict a tableau of dried flowers, Baker's instruments, a photograph of Vavra and Baker, and a card inscribed "Forgive me. I love you too much. Chet." Both the actual autograph card and portrait depicted are included together with the photographs.
Two of Baker's heavily used address books from the last years of his life, including mostly European addresses and phone numbers as well as numerous other notations including a set list, and notes concerning travel and concert information, personal reminders, mathematical computations, etc.
A receipt in Baker's name from a hotel in Amsterdam and a royalty statement to Baker from a European label, both dated 1987, together with an Amsterdam hotel and minibar key. (11418)
Autograph Letter Jazz