Gene Lees Jazzletter PO Box 240, Ojai CA 93024-0240 February 1998 Vol. 17 No. 2 Mail Bag slightly different direction. This was a memorial for a Californian, a symbol of an exciting, The take on Chet Baker prompts me, to recount an encounter with wonderful era, and one of the most gifted musicians who ever the Bad Boy of Jan whose “ears could hear paint dry.” lived. As Charles Champlin said of Chet in the Los Angeles Times, In the mid-1960s, I handled publicity for The Trident, a “He and his contemporaries played the score for the Los Angeles euphoric Sausalito waterfront jazz club owned by Frank Werber, I knew. In its go-ahead optimism, its mobility and its congeniality, a French Jewish escapee from a Nazi death camp who got rich as it reflected for me the excitement and sense ofpromise of Southem discoverer of the Kingston Trio. The Trident’s affable manager, Califomia itself.” Lou Ganapoler, fonnerly of the Village Vanguard, booked Chet I spoke of my first encounter with Chet Baker, then a slight into a seemingly strange duet with bossa nova pianist Joao Donato. blond kid with riveting good looks, one front tooth missing, Chet’s plane was late. About four hours before the opening night wearing Levis, white tee-shin, and an expensive garbardine sport show, he checked into a Sausalito hotel where he told an edgy coat which I later learned had been bought in Paris. That first Ganapoler and me that he was currently afloat with the strongest meeting was in the band room at Redondo High School. The marijuana he had ever found, “absolutely dynamite shit.” He had concert band was rehearsing and the band leader introduced him to no rehearsal with Donato, whose English was marginal at best. us as a new student. We figured that he must have done pretty well They had not in fact ever met. at the audition when he was seated second chair first trumpet. We For the opening set, Chet sat on a high stool in the bend of the were playing Russian and Ludmilla, a difficult overture. grand piano when Donato kicked off the first in a series of bossa The first trumpet player later said, “The first time through he nova tunes at tempos that were up — way up. Some of these tunes hardly played a note, but the second time down, he carved my butt. were obscure compared to then-current hits like Desafinado and The worst thing about it, though, was that he hardly ever pushed The Girlfrom Ipanema, and they were new. Like coupled stops on the right valves down.” a baroque organ, Chet and Donato flawlessly played the heads in The next years of my life got interesting, though not without unison before Chet was tumed loose to improvise. Things went this some frightening moments. As fascinated as I was with Chet’s way without a hitch for the entire two-week engagement. talent and musicianship, the dangerous aspects ofhis life style kept — Grover Sales, Belvedere, California me from getting as close as I really wanted to. Besides, even at that age, it was obvious that his gifts and even his presence Grover Sales, author ofJazz: America’s Classical Music, (Coda, belonged to the world. New York) has taught jazz history at Stanford and San Francisco For the next few years — in high school and then at El Camino State Universities. The best comment on Baker .’s almost supernatu- College — I had the good fortune to be the saxophone player in ral hearing came from Gerry Mulligan, who sunely knew his Chetty’s quintet. Even then he liked my baritone sax. I wanted to playing better than anyone. Gerry thought that Chet could infact play my alto sax on the gigs but he would say, “Play the bari. It read music, despite legend to the contrary. It wasni so much that sounds better with the trumpet.” A fact he proved later with Gerry he couldn l‘, Gerry said “He didnl have to.” Mulligan. One night we were walking down the Strand in Hennosa Beach, The farewell to Chet Baker, ten years ago, was a small afier a gig at the Lighthouse. Chet spotted a catamaran pulled up gathering, as celebrity funerals go. Even on that quiet Saturday, on the beach and said, “Let’s go to Catalina.” I protested. “I’ll put there were several other funerals in the Inglewood Cemetery that it back,” he said, and began lugging it across the sand to the water. attracted more people. This one, though, was very different. A I grudgingly lent a hand. He was gone for the next four or five wonderful young trumpeter, Chris Tedesco, played My Funny days. He sailed the thing to Catalina and back wearing his gig suit. Valentine as a most respectful last salute. The speakers — Chet’s Once, Redondo High exchanged its Varsity Show with Beverly friends and co-workers —— spoke about music, specifically jazz Hills High. A couple of us from the band were walking on music, more specifically bebop jazz music, albeit a different kind Beverly’s Campus with Chet. He was wearing one of his Paris of bebop than that which came out of New York’s 52nd Street. A suits, cut pretty much like a zoot suit. A cluster of football players, guy who went to Glendale and Redondo High, El Camino College, wearing letterman’s sweaters, made a few pithy comments about and drove a chopped and channeled primer-gray ’36 Ford with a Chet’s suit. Before we could stop him, he charged the biggest one. full-race ’46 Merc engine would naturally approach bebop from a By the time we pulled the behemoths off him, they had ripped the 2 suit completely off and bloodied him badly. He seemed to have no rhythmic player on piano.” fear at all, and he was still taunting them when we dragged him Clark hung out in a club in Peoria called the Grenada, owned away. All this from a guy capable of playing and singing in the by Sweets Edison’s uncle, Bruce Collins. “They used to gamble in most gentle, lyrical, and poignant way. the back and there was a bar in the front. I’ll never forget that At the farewell service, Russ Freeman, who wrote and per- Seagram’s Five Crown whiskey was in those days five dollars a formed with Chet on so many marvelous records, told about their fifth. I was in Peoria on Pearl Harbor day in I941. I went into the long association and friendship. This collaboration produced some Navy in I942.” of the best music of that era. After boot camp, Clark went on leave, visiting a cousin named Hirsch Hamel, also a close friend, and the bass player on some Vlfilliam Scott who lived on Momingside Avenue in Harlem. Like of the gigs I worked with Chet, spoke eloquently. Frank Straneri so many other servicemen later known as major jazz musicians, told about Chet’s unswerving dedication to artistic ideals and his Clark, on hitting town, headed for 52nd Street and its many jazz refiisal to compromise with the latest fad or fancy. This dedication clubs. He encountered Stuff Smith and Jimmy Jones at one club, took Chet to stardom and to the depths, but he stayed true to the Ben Webster and Tony Scott at another. Clark stood at the bar in music he heard. sailor’s uniform, holding his trumpet case. Tony Scott said on the The funeral ended, and I was left with my last memories of microphone, “Hey, there’s a sailor over there with a trumpet. Come Chetty. I was in New York in I987 for a union negotiation on up here, sailor. You want to play something?” Terrified, as he meeting. Chet was playing at a club in the Village. I was delighted recounted later, Clark mounted the bandstand and played. Scott got to get a chance to hear him. him ajob at the 845 Club in the Bronx. Then Clark went back to Afier the first few tunes it was obvious to the packed house that the navy and a position in one of the bands in training at Great he was too frail to play up to his fonner greatness. He didn’t have Lakes Naval Station, a cradle of great jazz musicians. Clark and the physical stamina to say what he wanted to say on the trumpet. Tony Scott would remain friends. Lukewarm applause masked the embarrassment we all felt. Then “At Great Lakes,” Clark said, “there was a whole bunch of Chet took the mike and sang Just Friends. He sang the lyrics the people like Mllie Smith, guys from the Jeter-Pillars Band in St. first chorus and then scatted three choruses of some of the most Louis, like Charles Pillars. Al Grey was there. And Lou Donald- beautiful, inventive jazz lines l’ve ever heard. son.” Something I’d never seen before happened. The entire audience The bands were kept strictly segregated at Great Lakes. stood, as if by reflex action, not at the end of the song but after “Our camp was called Camp Robert Smalls,” Clark said. “It Chet’s choruses. All the brilliance, beauty and inventiveness that was in barracks I812. They really had two branches of the navy in he didn’t have the strength to produce on the trumpet poured out a sense, as far as we were concemed. All the black people were in his singing. The audience was transported. relegated to being over there.