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Scenes From the Life of Chet Baker

10.02.12

Chet Baker finally hit New York in May of 1954, fronting his own band, for a month long engagement at Birdland. By all accounts it was a bizarre scene.  Baker’s group had been double booked for two weeks with Miles Davis. On most nights the audience with packed with young girls, who had streamed to the smoky, midtown club to catch a glimpse of their idol, Chet Baker. Davis’s band was forced to open for Baker’s group and on many night played before a white crowd who believed that Davis had been cribbing Baker’s riffs. Baker’s performances that month were tentative and flat. He was ripped by the jazz press for his limp playing and weak vocals. But such critiques did nothing to diminish his popular appeal or cause him to reappraise his own technique.

That spring he launched into a torrid affair with the sultry French actress Liliane Cukier. At parties, Baker told people Cukier was his wife, even though he was still married to Charlaine. One night during Baker’s run at Birdland, Charlaine showed up and glimpsed Baker making out in his car with Cukier. She rushed back to her hotel, picked up Baker’s gun and re-entered the club hot for revenge. While Baker was playing onstage, Charlaine was waving the pistol in Cukier’s face and then ran off toward the stage threatening to kill Baker, only to be restrained by documentary film-maker Al Avakian before she could unload a few rounds into the trumpeter.

Source: CounterPunch