Timeline Friday 13 May 1988

Events on Friday 13 May 1988 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.
• 1988 Chet Baker dies in Amsterdam On 13 May 1988, Chet Baker's body is found on the pavement below the window of his room at the Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam. He is 58. The cause of death is blunt force trauma consistent with a fall. Whether he fell, jumped or was pushed has never been definitively established. He had cocaine and heroin in his system. He leaves behind a body of recordings of incomparable beauty, three former wives, several children, and a myth as large as any in jazz -- the beautiful boy who fell and kept falling, and who played like an angel throughout.