DISGRACELAND - Chet Baker: Heroin, Romance, Missing Teeth and the James Dean of Jazz

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

Chet Baker, with his natural talent, unique voice and beautiful looks was known as “the James Dean of Jazz.” He was also a savage junkie and part time criminal. A one of a kind musician, his soft singing style and romantic playing enraptured Hollywood, the jazz world, and Europe. However, violence, crime, and drugs led to numerous prison stints and to one of the most mysterious deaths in music. Who or what killed the great Chet Baker? This episode was originally published on September 29, 2020. To view the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of, like, like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by

Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by Cotton. of our lives. Disgraceland is a production of double Elvis. Heads up, guys. In this episode, there's a lot of talk of the mid-century concept of cool, as well as about heroin. It should go without saying that there is nothing in this episode that is an endorsement of that drug, or any drug for that matter. But you're smart enough to know that already. All right, let's get into it.

The stories about jazz musician Chet Baker are truly insane. He was a natural, gifted musician with a mile-long rap sheet. He was worshipped by beautiful movie stars and both loved and loathed by serious jazz contemporaries. He was heavily addicted to heroin and made heavily addictive music. Chet Baker, with his overtly romantic style of playing and singing, coupled with his matinee idol good looks, was called the James Dean of Jazz. He was also called many other things. Gifted, junkie, angel, scammer, cool, stupid, charming, abusive, beautiful, and a rat. He was indeed all of these things, and he did, of course, make great music. That music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called

Second Story Swing, MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to wishing well by Terrence Trent Darby. And why would I play you that? specific slice of hard-line cheese, could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on May 13, 1988, and that was the day Chet Baker lost his life, creating one of the most enduring mysteries in music, the cause of his death. On this episode, Hard Bob, Heroin, Hardline Cheese, the James Dean of Jazz, and getting lost with Chet Baker. I'm Jake Brennan. And this is disgrace land. The smack to the mouth stung, but he said nothing.

His mother looked on in horror, but she said nothing. His father, who gave him the crack, said nothing as well. Nobody said anything. They were too busy trying to keep their cool. The house was a powder keg of suppressed tension. The tension was always there, just like those Oklahoma clouds. They never seemed to pass. Even when the sun fought its way through, the clouds hung around, ensuring that the sky would never be more than just almost blue.

The humiliation would never fully pass either. Even as an adult, even in success, even with the adoration of jazz lovers up and down the West Coast, whenever anything good would happen to him, there was that familiar pull in the back of his mind. It blasted into his conscience like Hardbop, demanding to be heard. It said, remember me, pretty boy, I'm here to remind you that you were. ain't shit. You ain't cool. You ain't ever been cool. You ain't ever going to be cool. You're going to be just like your daddy, some jive-ass half a musician who can't find work who nobody ever heard of. When Downbeat Magazine, the paper of record for jazz aficionados named him,

Chet Baker, trumpeter of the year, two years running back in 1954 and 55, there was no joy. He beat out Miles Davis. He knew what that meant. Resentment and anger. For something he couldn't control, the color of his skin. White, so very unhip. When he met Miles, he told him straight up that he wanted to write him a letter apologizing for winning the award because he knew he wasn't better than Miles. Miles said,

You got about 15 other letters to write before you get to me. The sting of the rejection from the hippist musician on the planet was the same, if not worse, than the sting of the beatings he took from his old man. Like Miles, the old man was not short on resentment and anger. The drugs helped. Heroin, grass, whatever pills he could get, but mainly heroin. The drug, shooting it, scoring it, it occupied every waking moment he wasn't on stage.

And in 1966, the state wasn't bringing in the bread like it was back in the mid-50s. In Los Angeles, in New York, his reputation as a serious jazz man was eclipsed by his reputation as a dangerous drug addict. And so, roadwork was necessary. Scoring depended entirely on what city you were in. This city, wherever the fuck USA, was not hip. He needed to come up with a new plan. To catch a thief with Carrie Grant, the Hitchcock movie, Grant clad head to toe and black night crawling throughout the Italian Riviera

in and out of unsuspecting socialites' windows, robbing them of their jewelry and cash. Chet thought he could have been cast as the thief over Grant. He knew Italy like the back of his hand, and he would have been able to do his own stunts. He was a righteous second-story man. Next to blowing trumpet and crooning, scamming people was one of his greatest talents, particularly breaking and entering above the ground floor.

The crime spree he and his bassist Bob Whitlock had embarked upon was necessary. Without junk, they would be rendered useless, bedridden with violent withdrawals and unable to perform, which was the whole point of being on the road in the first place. Put in work, make the bread, except all the bread went toward heroin. And when it ran out, there were no option. Chet's habit was extreme to say the least. He'd have to improvise. Whitlock looked on in amazement as the great Chet Baker scaled the fire escape.

He then hemmed his body tight to the side of the opulent home on the second story and carefully placed each foot on the ledge of the home's massive window nearest the fire escape. He popped the lock, lifted the glass, pushed his wiry body through and was in and out the valuables in no time. They'd cool their jets at an all-night diner in wait a while. for the pawn shop to open. When second story work wasn't an option, i.e. they couldn't wait on the sun to come up and the pawn shops to open and the dealers to wake up. They'd work their drugstore scam.

Chet had it down pat. All that acting over in Italy had paid off. First, he'd prick his finger and draw blood into a tiny vial, and then he'd hit the local pharmacist up with his plate. Gee, Doc, I don't know. Hurts when I move. In my gut, hurts when I pee, too. Maybe it's a kidney Stone, I don't know. And the pharmacist would have Chek give a urine sample. Chet would drop a couple specks of his own blood from the vial into the urine and voila. A dilated prescription and a passable substitute for heroin. The scam didn't end there. While Chet was performing his little one act on the good doctor, Whitlock would sidle up to the counter all nonchalant and work his charm on the nurse. And if she was easily flattered, which was usually the case, he would manage to get his sweaty

paw on the doc's prescription pad, and from there it was off to the races. But it wasn't always about the drugs. In the beginning, it was about the music. Chet Baker was a lot of things. Stupid might have been one of them. It was little thought that went into his playing. When people who knew him as a man and as a musician speak of him, they almost always reference his natural talent. The music seemed to flow right through him, often at lightning speed and in tight, perfectly natural, impeccably timed phrases. It was a style that other jazz trumpeters practice rigorously to achieve, but none of them ever saw Chet practice.

He'd just show up and blow. He cared, but not enough to rehearse, or so it seemed. And this detachment, along with his natural talent and striking good looks, lent an air of cool to Chep Baker's persona that wasn't previously seen or heard in any musician, anywhere, in any genre. In the 1940s and 50s, for jazz musicians and fans, particularly those being swept up in the thrill of a new type of jazz called bebop being vanguarded by the great jazz musicians, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and the aforementioned Miles Davis, the concept of cool meant you were different. You were apart from the rest of society.

Cool was a way of life. Cool, it was said, meant that you get done in a sentence what somebody else would get done in a paragraph. Cool was an economy of effort, in life and in ones playing. Miles Davis was cool. Cool was ice. Cool was intellectual. Cool was black. But Chet Baker was warm, those soft eyes and romantic melodies.

Chet was a lot of things and intellectual was not one of them. And Chet was white. Yet Chet was still somehow cool. Charlie Parker said so. And Charlie Parker knew from cool. He, along with Dizzy Miles, drummer Max Road, and pianist Bud Powell were among a handful of musicians on the East Coast who were literally revolutionizing music, taking swing music and pop standards and ripping them inside out,

preserving little of the original compositions. These players would demolish the song's melodies, using only the chord progressions as their road forward, upon which they would blaze manic, furious improvisational melodies and solos. And bebop horn players blew hard. The great Louis Armstrong, the father of jazz, had no idea what he was listening to when he first heard it. Few others did either. Only those who were cool, got it. It was a badge of honor, a sign that you were cool if you were into bebop. Shooting heroin further cemented your status.

Bebop musicians, Charlie Parker, especially, were largely hardcore, savage junkies. Heroin took one's disaffected attitude toward life, toward society, toward everything, and rooted it into something real and dangerous. Nothing signaled to the straight world, your hipness, your otherness, more than your heroin habit. It blocked out the harshness of white conformist post-World War II America and heightened the only part of the day that mattered, the only part of the day that you weren't high on narcotics when you were on stage, tearing apart tradition on the icy, cool wings of improvisation. In the early 50s, the only thing cooler than being into bebop and being on heroin was being black.

Chet Baker did not play bebop. He played straight. Chet Baker was not on heroin. His drug at the time was reefer, and he was, again, obviously not black. He wasn't even from the East Coast. He was from the not very bebob West Coast. Yet that didn't stop Charlie Parker from hiring Chet Baker on a West Coast stint in 1952. Such was Chet's immense natural talent and disaffected cool charisma. After Parker's engagement had run its course, during which Chet further proved himself, to his hero by personally scoring dope for him on a regular basis. Parker called Dizzy Gillespie back in New York.

His message was short and to the point. You better look out. There's a little white cat out here who's going to eat you up. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your.

Girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands.

I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the Girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark.

When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance, like he's about to attack me, like, making karate noises.

And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been a sleepwalk. David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction, or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban.

Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver. And more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them,

changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chet Baker stood on stage, and the rest of the quartet eased into the ballad's intro. Chet's head was down, chin pressed to the top of his chest, trumpet hanging off to his right, waiting. Not for a cue, but that feeling. When it came, he lifted his head and positioned his lips to the end of the microphone

so close they touched. He clinched his eyes together, hard, blocked out the rest of the band, the audience, starlets, boppers, and hoppers among them, and the muscles in his face tightened while he listened for the, the right note. It was there, then it was gone. Lost. Stone still, he waited for the core progression to loop back around, for another opportunity to ease into the romance afforded by what was one of his favorite melodies. When it came, he opened his mouth to sing in a whisper, so vulnerable,

it stunned the audience into silence, or fear of what any unintended distraction on their part might do to the beautiful and wounded artist on stage. His trumpet playing may have been natural, but his voice was much affected, though in such a way that it seemed, of course, natural. Chepp Baker knew what he was doing. As a horn player, he knew about controlling pitch, so as a singer he was able to manipulate the pitch of his own voice, a concept that likely never occurred to traditional singers.

It was subversive, a sensibility owed to his love of bebop, a genre he admired but seldom played, opting for a more traditional style of jazz that suited his natural talent and, well, laziness. But when it came to singing, Chepp would consciously manipulate the pitch of the melody he was singing, causing his vocal line to be, as he would later say, under the center of tonality.

To square as it sounded wrong, to those with ears, however, it sounded entirely unique and created a beautiful sense of intense vulnerability. Jeff Baker whispered his vocals softly and intentionally, and the result was such that he felt as though he was singing to you and only to you. You were alone together. Chet Baker's vulnerability is such that it makes you feel vulnerable.

More than any other musician, Chet Baker, when he's on, sends you reeling. His music creates a sense of wooziness and emotional vertigo where you lose yourself in the spell of Chet. It's everything about him, his voice, his playing, his vulnerability, his addiction, his myth. It detaches you. Chet sings that old saloon song,

everything happens to me. And you're naked, untethered from your resolve and in need of a good cry, or at the very least the warm embrace of a beautiful, understanding Italian lover. You know, like Chet. At least that's how Marilyn Monroe felt. And Jane Russell, and even Jane's friend, professional hard-ass, Robert Mitchum. And they were all in the audience on that night. Mitchum knew about bad luck.

His life experience, to that point, a 14-year-old runaway-turned shoe salesman turned Hollywood star, Tinsletown's first real-life bad boy both on and off-screen. Tall, dark, handsome brooding, often drunk, arrested and shipped off to World War II as punishment, only to return to a reefer bust in 1948. Mitchum was not your friendly neighborhood banker. He was not Jimmy Stewart. Bob Mitchum was a real-life anti-hero who could easily pick up the bird in Chet Baker was putting down.

This, despite the fact that Mitchum was Hollywood's masculine archetype, handsome and strong with a deep baritone, and Chepp Baker was the opposite, pretty and sensitive, with a tenor singing voice, far more James Dean than John Wayne. Didn't matter. Chepp Baker's playing, his image, the rumors of his notorious drug habit, the growing myth of his cool, all that subversiveness. Bob Mitchum was hooked.

And Jane Russell, like Bob, and Marilyn Monroe would listen to anything Jane said, so they, along with a club full of Hollywood elite, all wound up at the Hague nightclub one night in April of 1953. So too did Detective John Edward O'Grady's scourge of hoppers, bobsders, and jazz heads throughout Los Angeles. Dangerous musician and celebrity drug addicts like Robert Mitchum and Chip Baker were public enemy number one for O'Grady, leader of the LAPD Narcotics Squad, who had pledged that the, quote, dream of his life was, quote, protecting society against the creeping menace of drugs.

To O'Grady, being a narcotics detective, wasn't a job. It was a crusade. He cast himself into his own starring role as savior to the good, straight, hardworking people of 1950s Los Angeles. He wore his crew cut high and tight. He wore his dark sunglasses inside and out, and he wore his pearl-handled revolver proudly on his hip as he patrolled Hollywood Boulevard,

calling himself the ball-busting Sergeant O'Grady, the big-time big-o, daddy-o, The most feared cop in the city, the meanest motherfucker on the fourth scourge of the drug scourge, and he hated Chepp Baker as much as he hated Bob Mitchum. He trailed Mitchum to the Hague, and that Baker was playing as part of the fashionably hip Jerry Mulligan Quartet was a bonus, two-for-one special, one reefer head and one junko and one night if O'Grady was lucky. He and his men positioned themselves as inconspicuously as they could within the crowd, which is to say, not very conspicuously at all, given their square haircuts, white.

socks and black shoes. But it didn't matter. O'Grady had a devious play. With the band distracted on stage, he dispatched some of his squad to Jerry Mulligan's house, where they entered without a warrant and intimidated Mulligan's and Baker's girlfriends into giving up whatever illegal drugs they had, which was marijuana, which at the time in California carried a stiff prison sentence. O'Grady's men brought the girls back to the hague, and after the set, they wrangled them and their musician and boyfriends, into the backroom office to grill them on where they kept their stash. Chet Baker pleaded cool. Jerry Mulligan, perhaps in the throes of a heroin Jones, broke down crying.

O'Grady noticed the track marks on his arms. He and his men drove the musicians and their girls back to Mulligan's for a proper search. Again, without a warrant, and scared Mulligan into giving up his works and his heroin stash, and they were all busted. The following day, the headline from the Los Angeles mirror screened, Hot-lips, bobsder, eight and two wives jailed Nabdop. The headline and article were accompanied by a photo of Chet Baker, who, of course, looked undeniably cool.

We'll be right back after this word, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man.

A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else

that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting a amazing. in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance, like he's about to attack me, like,

making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction

or you just go straight for the guts. I Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories

and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists, who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do.

You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chat Skated from the Bust. It was Jerry Mulligan's dope, after all.

Jerry went to jail. Chet felt invincible. He was the great Chet Baker, the coolest datio, so cool that Hollywood opened its arms for real. Chet made his acting debut in the war film Hell's Horizon. Then he was offered a movie studio contract. The idea was he'd be the next Sinatra by way of James Dean, the James Dean of Jazz, baby.

A new type of screen star, but Chet declined. Movie stars were decidedly uncool compared to jazz musicians. He'd continue to blow for his spread. After filming for Hell's Horizon wrapped, Chet hit the road. Carnegie Hall in New York with Dave Bruback. The staunch East Coast jazz critics bucked. Movie star Jasmine didn't play.

Chet banged more dope into his arm. In Boston, Chet allowed a young jazz pianist, Dick Twardzig, to sit in with him. And afterward, Chet Baker would never be the same. Dick Twardzik's playing seemed to embody well, everything.

It was steeped and classical, yet afraid to flirt, with the avant-garde. His approach to harmony was unmatched. Emotionally, it was deep and cutting, and his playing incredibly soulful. He achieved a trance-like state on stage. His whole vibe as a musician as a man smacked of euphoria. Chet Baker was in love. Dick Twardsick was everything he was not. Chet was soft, his music was as he was approachable. Dick was hard, mysterious, and Egon Schield portrait come to life sprung from the cafes of Paris in the 20s. A long way from Chet's Oklahoma, Chet was a simple melodist, Dick, a complex harmonist.

Immediately, Chet loved playing with him. Dick was going to forever change the face of jazz. Everyone knew it, and that lent didn't extra air of cool to Chet Baker. Chet was hip-squared with Dick on stage with him. And offstage, Chet vibed all over Dick's personality. Dick compensated for Chet's shortcomings. He fulfilled something in Chet. Those who knew Chet Baker best, his longtime girlfriend later in Lerner,

life, Ruth Young, sweared Dick roused Chet's late in homosexual feelings. And of course, Dick shared Chet's fascination with heroin. The euphoric highs Dick achieved with his playing seemed to Chet to only be possible through junk. Together, the two collided into their own kind of lost core, heroin harmony. The stint in Boston only lasted a matter of days, but Chet felt he had made a friend for life. Left Dick behind and continued his tour. Dick remarkably we got clean, completing rehab and kicking junk altogether. But before the year would end, Cheff Baker came calling with an offer for Dick to join his band on a tour of Europe.

Dick accepted. Nick's girlfriend knew in her gut that it would be the last time she would see him alive. She was right. It took literally minutes upon his departure with Chet and the rest of his band for Dick to succumb to that old habit. In no time, he was hooked again. On the night of October 20, 1955 in Paris, Dick Twarczak played his last gig with Chet Baker, the last gig of his life.

He returned to his hotel room, locked his door, and proceeded to jack a gluttonous amount of junk into his arm. When they broke down the door and found him the next morning, the needle was still sticking out of his arm. He was 24 years old. Chet was in shock. Those who knew Dick, including members of Chet's band at the time, were angry. Chet's then drummer Peter Lippman had his own version of what happened, and it involved Chet, going back to D.E. Dick's hotel room with him, shooting up and bailing in a panic after Dick began to OD. Concerned about more bad press and his already dwindling career opportunities,

Chet Baker, Whitman alleged, ran out on a dying friend. Chet's reputation took a massive hit, a metronome, even hitting in its pages, that Chet was somehow responsible. Dick's parents wrote Chet countless letters blaming him for their son's death. Chet Baker was ravaged with guilt, and for his part had no real answers as to what actually happened that night. Unbelievably, he claimed, among other things, that he was actually cleaned at the time and had no awareness of Dick's habit.

Chet gave numerous accounts to different people over the years, each eventually arriving or hinting at Chet somehow being the victim. Chet Baker, forever cast as the lost, lovable loser in his own saloon song. Regardless of who was to blame, lost crushed Chet Baker. He returned to America to find work to New York City, the heroin capital of the world.

And there was little work for him upon his return. And the only people who cared about Chet Baker's arrival in New York City were the drug dealers at the five-spot nightclub. Dirty Nick, Johnny E., Slim, and Ray with the blonde hair. Serious bebop heads were preoccupied downtown with Miles Davis, who just released his incredible album Miles Ahead, as well as with the now legendary East Village Live residency with the Lonious Monk and John Coltrane. They could care less about some white West Coast trumpeter who made more headlines with this drug and he made heads turn with anything resembling innovation. Chet sculpt in the shadows,

hustled dope on money borrowed from friends or took it on the arm from the dealers. But when the goodwill at the five spot would dry up, he'd hit Hanson's drugstore on 51st and 7th to score, and that is only if he could pride the attention of the dealers away from comedian Lenny Bruce, who'd set up shop in the back, his own private clubhouse, a drugstore. Lenny Bruce may have been ahead of his time, but his sense of place was beyond really. it. For Jeff Baker, not so much. There's another heroin bust, and then another. Baker, to satisfy

the judge, committed to cleaning up in a legendary rehab facility in Lexington, Kentucky. He made good on his promise, move right back to New York, settled in with a prostitute friend named Pixie and her street hustler roommate, and quickly got back on the horse again. Remarkably, with his reputation in near Tatters, some of the greatest jazz men of the era agreed to a recording session with Chet, the great pianist Bill Evans, an incredible guitarist Kenny Burrell, among them. Chet was something approaching professional in the face of these modern-day giants, and he delivered, creating one of his best studio albums, 1959s, Chet. But the creative success was unsatisfying. His demons, be they driven by the guilt and shame

of Dick Twardzik's death, the rejection he felt from the hardcore bebop set, the sting of his father's abuse, or just his own reckless detachment. We're going to get to the same. the better of him. And Chep Baker was determined to lose himself. 1959, 116th in Lennox, Harlem, the spot, the cop. The junkies knew it. The dealers knew it, and the cops knew it too. They also knew that if you were white, stayed far away from this corner in Harlem. Chet Baker apparently didn't know this or didn't care or was too stupid to understand. Either way, he was an easy mark, and he was busted. While on bail, he went back uptown to Harlem to score, course, he was busted again just two weeks later. Rehab this time would be received only at

Rikers Island, East River Detox, Welcome to Hell Shipbird. Chet cleaned up. He had to in order to survive. Kicked, worked out, got himself back into shape, and because of his physical attractiveness, he did what was necessary to survive. In a racially divided 1950s prison, Chet Baker, in order to avoid the notorious Riker's booty bandits, the rapists who congregated in the prison, and showers, where so much forced sex took place that the stank of semen was constant, moved into a black inmate cell, a much larger black inmate. Chet then began hanging out exclusively with black inmates. One inmate later recalled that Chet would hang in the yard and stretch out for some sun, laying his head in his roommate's lap, staring lovingly up into

his eyes. Chet's friend Jack Simpson recalled that upon release, Chet remarked that his roommate protected him, loved him, and they, quote, he would have fucking died for me. Chet Baker survived Rikers, but now free, the question was, would he survive himself? After prison, Chet Baker abandoned America, perhaps sensing it was about to abandon him. He settled in Italy where he was beloved as La Angelo, the angel, and trumpet dioro, or the golden trumpet. Italy, with its love of glamour and grime, loved Chet Baker, and so too did their infamous paparazzi. It wasn't long before drug officials got hip to Chet's heroin jive, and he was busted again for narcotics. The trial was national news, during which Chet's defense attorney

presented evidence in an effort to appeal to the court's pity, depicting Chet as a victim of heroin, going so far as to tell the story of Dick Tward's girlfriend, slapping Chet in the face and accusing him of killing her boyfriend. Chet was traumatized, as attorney argued. Surely the court could sympathize and go easy on them. And they didn't. Chet was sent to prison again. He did a year and a half. And by the mid-60s, with something more to support than a heroin addiction, namely a new

baby and a wife, his third, Chet Baker returned to the States to find work. He wound up again on the West Coast and was, of course, looking to score. All Chep Baker wanted to do was to score. It had been a rough night. The gig was awful and his Jones was strong. It was early morning. San Francisco was waking up. Chet hit the CD hotel in the film were to cop.

In the hallway, he came upon the dealer. Chet gave him the knowing nod. The dealer just stared at him. And then, according to Chet, in numerous recountings of the story, five guys came up behind the dealer from the back of the hall. The dealer said nothing, just walked backward. Chet turned to run. The five dudes broke into a sprint.

Out the door, onto the sidewalk. One of them got his hand on a Chet's shoulder in mid-sprint and spun him around. Chet maintained his balance, caught a fist to the grill. He swung back toward them while continuing to move backward. All five guys now punching and kicking him in stride. Chet compelled him in a slow motion backward ball of violence. Fiss, feet, fury flying from all. Chet stumbled backward into a newspaper stand, grabbed it, shoved it toward his attackers.

One of them tripped. Chet stumbled back some more into a parking meter that halted his progress. He took a sharp fist to the cheek and had the opposite effect it was supposed to have. It invigorated Chet. He fought back harder, faster. Another one of his attackers hit the pavement from one of Chet's haymakers. Two down, three to go. The brawling force him continue their backward progression.

Chet continued landing shots in defense. He stumbled into a parked sedan with four people inside. He climbed on top of the car. His attacker swiped at his ankles. Chet hot stepped around their grass, alternately stomping on their hands. One attacker attempted to climb up on the back of the trunk. Chet booted him in the face, sending him reeling. Three down.

Two to go. Chet leapt to the street side of the car, opened the backseat passenger side door to the shock and horror of the car's passengers and dove in, screaming to the driver who he did not know, to step on it and get him the fuck out of there. The driver did no such thing. Chet pounded on the back of the seat. The dude next to him reached across Chet's body, opened the door and pushed Chet out onto the street where now all five of his attackers had reassembled. Chet landed on the pavement on his side, and the men surrounded him, and then the real beating began. Repeated kicks to the head, face, and the real beating began. Repeated kicks to the head, face, and the wall. body. Chet was lost. No idea what was happening. The kicking stopped. One of the men told another to roll him over. Let me see his teeth. Chet was rolled under his back. His face of bloody mess, barely conscious, his head rolled to his side, his cheek on the pavement. One of the attackers anchored his left leg solid into the ground, pulled his right leg back and hauled off and with all the strength that could muster, kicked his foot straight into the trumpeter's mouth, shattering his teeth. When they found Chepp Baker, he was passed out in a pool of his own urine and vomit. His teeth were shattered.

All of them were so badly damaged that the ones that didn't remain were required to be pulled. A trumpeter can't blow his horn without his teeth. The shape of a trumpeter's dental structure, their emboucher, accounts for part of the player's delivery. Without teeth, it is near impossible to play a wind instrument. Chep Baker was done, and as far as the dealers in San Francisco were concerned, this was a good thing. Chet was suspected of being at best a scamming junkie who couldn't make do on his debts or promises and at worst a rat who was selling out fellow junkies and dealers to the cops in order to avoid arrest and more jail time. Whoever was behind the beating of Chet Baker knew what

they were doing. Want to get payback on a dirty trumpet player? Take away his teeth. Chet spent the next three years of his life pumping gas in California 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. The hardest work of his life, he would recall. Eventually, he put the scratch together to get dentures. He wanted back in. Dizzy Gillespie put together some work for him in New York City, and the rebirth of Chet Baker had commenced. A success in New York, he departed for Europe again, where he was beloved. He supplemented his heroin habit with methadone. He fell into some sort of working junkie groove, for the most part avoided the law and continued to make music into the 80s, where a new generation of hipsters discovered his incredible talent through a creatively fruitful collaboration with Elvis Costello.

Chet Baker was living in Amsterdam on the second floor of the hotel Prindindrich. He was lost in the romance of his newfound relevance and attempting as always to get lost. His heroin use was back in full swing. May 13, 1988, Chet Baker walked into his hotel room after his gate, grabbed his works, injected himself with potent Dutch heroin, sat in the open window cell of his second-story room, dragged on a cigarette, knotted off, and tipped over into the springtime air.

He fell two stories and lost his life. May 13, 1988, Chet Baker walked into his hotel room after his gig, grabbed his works, injected himself with potent Dutch heroin, sat in the open window cell of his second-story room, dragged on a cigarette while the dealer he'd scammed burst through his door to push him out the window. He fell two stories and longed.

lost his life. May 13, 1988, Chet Baker lost the keys to his hotel room after his gig. His works were in his room. He needed to get high. He deployed his second story man's skills, climbed out of his neighbor's window onto the balcony, attempted to cross over onto his own balcony and lost his footing. He fell two stories and lost his life. Either way, Chet Baker was dead, lost finally for good. Remarkably, he'd made a little. as long as he had to the age of 58. The mystery surrounding his death survives as part of the myth of his cool. Notting off and falling out of the window and being shoved out of the window by an angry dealer are the two stories to get the most traction. But in reality, the story about Chet

clumsily losing his balance while trying to scale the balcony is corroborated and likely the most plausible, if not the least romantic. So uncool. Such a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan. I'm Jake in Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership.

Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at DisgracelandPod. Rock a roll.

When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific conference, artist. They take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in.

Do that. David O'Yelloo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gait and Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone. Carrie Kenny Silver and more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor?

That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.