DEEP IN A DREAM

The grim life of cool jazzman Baker, told with relish and a firm grasp of the material by Gavin (Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret, 1991).

Baker epitomized detached hipness: he was handsome and dangerous, above it all, a natural lyrical trumpeter with a bell-clear tenor, and a true bad boy. As bebop was making its presence felt, with all its dissonant chords and chromatic solos and unusual rhythms, its improvisation and intimidation, Baker started making his name as a horn player, but in a more fluid style, running from brash and spirited to playing that was “as graceful as poems.” Gavin tells Baker’s story with excitement, a torrent of images and associations on a par with the trumpeter’s own far-flung ramble through the jazz world, working with Charlie Parker (whose praise rocketed him to stardom), his extraordinary early musical rapport with Gerry Mulligan, and his own low-key West Coast groups. But, as Gavin explains, he was also one troubled man, mistrusting, needing to be mothered, vulgar, reckless, and irresponsible. Derided by East Coast critics for his mildness and accused by black jazz players of lifting their material and commercializing it, Baker still had a tremendous following, though Gavin allows that it was as much for his looks as for his pearly trumpeting and androgynous voice. Dope took him down. Grass gave way to painkillers, then heroin, and Baker turned himself into a walking ghost. Gavin does a cringingly fine job of detailing these personal travails, Baker’s desperate womanizing, and his musical persona, which made nickel-and-dime clubs feel as natural for Baker as the big jazz festivals, or more so. Yet, doped and pathetic, even his last European gigs were found to have a “broken, lonely, but at the same time endlessly sweet and emotional sound.”

Not just a pitiable waste of luminous talent, but a really scary story. Narrated by Gavin with gingery discernment. (24 pp. photographs)