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Music

In Chet Baker's albums you can hear America’s romantic self-image curdling

6 March 2021

9:00 AM

6 March 2021

9:00 AM

The thing to remember about Chet Baker, an old acquaintance says of the errant jazz musician in Deep In A Dream, James Gavin’s exemplary 2002 biography of Baker, is that ‘he can hurt people even after he’s dead’.

Baker could be dangerous but mostly he hurt himself. He died, squalidly, in 1988, and his music, at least, can still wound.

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Chet Baker’s Riverside catalogue, reissued by Craft Recordings, is available on vinyl and across digital platforms.

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