As though I had wings : the lost memoir

Available (1)

Location	Collection	Call #
CLP - Main Library	Second Floor - Music - Open Stacks	ML419.B14 A3 1997
Location	CLP - Main Library
Collection	Second Floor - Music - Open Stacks
Call Number	ML419.B14 A3 1997

Something

Summary

Published Reviews

Booklist Review: "Baker fell from a window to his death in 1988, perhaps more famous as a heroin addict than as a jazzman. Aided by Bruce Weber's elegant film about him, Let's Get Lost (1987), his music has since become more popular than ever. His English wife, Carol, now presents his autobiographical scraps. They start with his first army stint in 1946^-47, then retreat to Oklahoma childhood. As a teenager in California, Baker got into music, quit school, did the army, tried college, and began playing professionally. And he encountered pretty ladies and grass. Thereafter, women and drugs became the leitmotivs of his life. Baker always mentions when, where, and with whom he was playing, but he says more about getting a "script" (i.e., a prescription for narcotics from a compliant physician), getting away (from the cops), getting busted, and getting jailed than about music. He is appealingly terse but, though candid, far from fully self-disclosing. This fragment ending in 1963 makes a full-scale biography highly desirable. --Ray Olson"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "In her introduction to this disappointing book, Baker's widow, Carol, notes that it is a "gorgeous jumble of images and impressions." It is far from gorgeous. The jumble, which consists mainly of accounts of the legendary jazz trumpeter and singer's romances and marriages, the ruses he used to get discharged from the army, his long slide into drug dependency and his numerous drug busts, is childishly written and uninteresting. In one chapter, Baker (1929-1988) muses about growing up in Oklahoma, and there are brief references to the bands and musicians he played with, but other than this, there is very little about his background, his music or the course of his career. His most persistent recollections are of getting high and the people who supplied him with the "stuff." The memory of a talented musician is ill served by the publication of these inane writings. A selected discography is included. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Additional Information

Subjects	Baker, Chet. Jazz musicians -- United States -- Biography.
Publisher	New York :Buzz,1997
Edition	1st Buzz Books ed.
Language	English
Description	118 pages ; 22 cm
Bibliography Notes	Discography: pages 117-118.
ISBN	0312167970
Other	Classic View