Timeline Monday 23 December 1929

Events on Monday 23 December 1929 2

• 1929 – 1988 Chet Baker Chesney Henry Baker (23 December 1929 -- 13 May 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist whose cool, lyrical playing and vulnerable, intimate singing made him one of the most distinctive voices in jazz history. He rose to fame almost overnight in 1952 playing with Charlie Parker and then with Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet, whose recording of 'My Funny Valentine' became one of the most celebrated in jazz. Baker's beauty -- often compared to James Dean -- made him a cultural icon as much as a musician. His life was ravaged by heroin addiction: he lost his teeth, served prison time in Italy, disappeared for years and made a series of miraculous comebacks. He died in 1988 falling from an Amsterdam hotel window. He was 58.
• 1929 Chet Baker born in Yale, Oklahoma Chesney Henry Baker is born on 23 December 1929 in Yale, Oklahoma. The family moves to Glendale, California in 1940. His father plays guitar and banjo and encourages his musical interest. Chet begins on trombone at school before switching to trumpet at thirteen. He is largely self-taught -- he learns to read music only partially and relies throughout his career on an extraordinarily acute ear and a natural physical command of the trumpet that formal training cannot entirely explain.