Chet Baker Sings and Plays...

Chet Baker was a rockstar of a Jazz musician. He was James Dean and Kurt Cobain with a trumpet. A penchant for beautiful (and usually blonde) women, heroin and cocaine addiction, and his mysterious death all contribute to his persistent infamy, put in perspective by these classic recordings of a man blessed with a talent this pure. This was a guy who, at 25, beat out Miles Davis in the Downbeat Jazz Poll. He was also a guy so helplessly addicted that he got his face kicked in while trying to buy drugs after a show in 1966, ruining his ability to play the trumpet and forcing him to re-learn how to play with dentures. He would never be the same. This was a guy who in 1988 filled himself up with coke and heroin and fell (or jumped) off his balcony in Amsterdam to his death. He was the tragic anti-hero, the Johnny Cash of jazz, and an example of another amazing career arc altered early by the addictive power of narcotics. Say no to drugs, kids!

Listen:
Someone to Watch Over Me
Let's Get Lost
[from Chet Baker Sings and Plays...|buy]