Chet Baker was born on December 23, 1929, in Yale, Oklahoma. His father, Chesney Baker, sr., played guitar semi-professionally in a local Country-and-Western band.
In 1940 the family moved to Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles. Chets earliest musical activities happened when his mother "used to drag me around to the amateur contests that they had in L.A. on sunday afternoons. I had to compete with girls playing accordeon or tap-dancing. I never won, but I was second once. Even at that time I was singing the current ballads. I sang in a church choir at the same time - 1941 and 42". When Chet was 13 years old his father bought him a trumpet, and Chet started taking lessons at Glendale Jr.High School, but as he was more inclined to play by ear than by the written music, this was not too succesful.
The first commercially issued recording that Chet Plays on, comes (not surprising) from a jam session at the "Trade Winds Club" on March 24, 1952, and around the same time he played with Freddie "Snickelfritz" Fischer's dixieland/show band and with tenor saxophonist Vido Musso. Soon after this, however he got what might be called "his local breakthrough", as he was hired by altoist Charlie Parker for some West Coast gigs and a short trip to Canada..."At that time I was living in Lynwood, California. I was married, my wife worked in a dress shop,and I came home one afternoon and there was a telegram from, I think, Dick Bock that said that Bird was holding audition for a trumpet player at the Tiffany Club at 3 o'clock, so I ran up there. When I got to the club, every trumpet player in L.A. was there. I got up and played two tunes and he (Charlie Parker) stopped the audition and hired me on the spot. I was 22 at the time."
In 1964 he was ripped off by his manager, he went to California with the family. Soon after this, his downhill slide started: he recorded several albums for the World Pacific label (now owned by Liberty Records), commercial music of no jazzvalue,.and in August 1966 he was knocked down and badly hurt. Worst of all (for a trumpet player): His teeth were knocked and kicked out, and for several years he was hardly able to play, as can be witnessed by the few record dates he had.
"As l rely 100 % on the ear, I react strongly to everything that goes on around me. The conditions that I've had while learning to play, do not exist anymore. I feel like I belong to a species, threatened by destruction. Sad, in a way, but thatīs what they call progress, isn't it ?" "I play every set as if it were the final one. It has been like this for years. I don't have too much time left, and it's important to show the musicians I'm playing with - more than anybody else - that I give everything I've got in me. And that I expect them to do the same. Music comes from within, and it happens thanks to the musicians I'm playing with. I love to play, and I think that's the only reason I've been brought into the world."