Seeing Chet Baker as an actor recently, in "Hell's Horizon" (in which he played a member of a B-29 flight crew), made me check to see if he appeared in any other films. He didn't, but what did pop up on the library database was a movie about him, "Born to Be Blue"(2015), starring none other than Ethan Hawke, who we raved about in "First Reformed" a couple weeks ago. That cinched it for me - Hawke is one of my favorite actors - and I was intrigued at what he would do with his portrayal because the legend of Chet Baker is that of a waste case, a once-hypertalented trumpeter who created a new style of jazz but burnt out quickly after discovering heroin in the late 1950s.
But there was a lot more to him than that. In reading the IMDB notes afterwards, I learned that the movie combined fact and fiction to create a dramatic story, so I cannot vouch for the truth of particular scenes or anecdotes, but I'm gonna assume that the basis of the plot - Baker's attempt to resurrect his career in the late 60s following the loss of his front teeth - is legitimate. One other note : Wiki states that the character of "Jane Azuka" (Carmen Ejogo), who becomes his girlfriend, is a composite of several women in Baker's life. With these things acknowledged, we can move on to our review.
We first see Baker at the height of his fame, playing at a nightclub in New York. This is in the mid-1950s, so he would've been around 26, and he still looks sharp in his suit, shades and slick haircut. Several Jazz luminaries are in the audience, including Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, who've come to see what all the fuss is about, this White cat stepping on their turf, playing so called "West Coast Swing". Baker knocks 'em dead, the mostly black audience goes wild......all except for Miles, who asks to meet Baker after the show. "Hey man", he says to Chet, "that's a real sweet sound you got there. Sweet like candy. It's too pretty, you know what I'm sayin'? Why don't you go home to California and play at the beach, then come back here when you've lived a little". Dizzy tries to placate Baker after Miles walks away, "Aww, don't pay him no mind, he's just jealous", but Chet is clearly miffed by the snub.
The nightclub scene is intercut with a film project from the mid-60s, a movie-within-a-movie. By then, Baker was heavily addicted to junk. A director bails him out of jail in Italy, so he can play himself in the biopic. This is where he first meets Jane Azuka, the lead actress in the film. She's playing his previous girlfriend "Elaine". At first she's put off by his subpar acting technique, and his constant attempts to hit on her. But eventually she falls for him, and soon they're inseparable. One night, however, he's jumped by his drug dealer after leaving the set. The dealer beats Baker to a pulp for non-payment, knocking out his front teeth. The movie shoot is then cancelled and all of Baker's gigs are put on hold. The doctor tells him he'll never play the trumpet again, after all, front teeth are needed to brace the lips against the mouthpiece. This is called the embouchere, the way the mouth fits the instrument.
"What if I got dentures"?, Baker asks.
"Well, I don't want to tell you your business, because I don't play the trumpet and anyway, it's your life, but I imagine that even with false teeth, you'd still have to spend months if not years relearning how to play. In simple terms, it'll never be the same and you likely won't sound like you did". This then, is the crux of the plot, Baker's motivation to relearn his horn, and to regain not merely his livelihood but his raison d'etre. It's a slow, painful process but he guts it out and we're proud of him, because - again - his real-life reputation is sketchy. We didn't know he possessed such determination and strength of character. Without money coming in from concerts, Baker knows he'll have to get a regular job, and he does, pumping gas in Oklahoma where he's gone home to live with his parents. Jane goes with him, but their stay isn't long due to Chet's conflicts with his father.
Back in California, he tries hustling some gigs, but the club owners want nothing to do with him. Even his old manager refuses to help. After ten years of addiction he's considered untrustworthy. Making the situation even more precarious is his parole officer, breathing down his neck about a "real job". One of the conditions for staying out of prison is that he be "gainfully employed", but he hasn't tried to find work because he feels his playing has recovered to the point where he can earn his living that way. "Music is my life, man", he tells the parole officer. "I was a star once, sold a whole lot of records". The officer is not unsympathetic, but doubts Chet can climb the mountain again, or even earn enough to meet his parole requirements. One person he can lean on for emotional support is Jane, who sticks with him through thick and thin, even when they're reduced to living in her van down by the river (no not really, it's the ocean). Through it all he practices and practices his trumpet, learning not one but three new enboucheres. His mouth hurts like hell but he keeps playing, and again we're impressed because we didn't know he had it in him. What we find out about Chet Baker is that he may have been irresponsible in many areas of his life, but when it came to music, he'd do whatever it took to play his best.
He gives Jane a trumpet valve ring as a symbol of their engagement ("it's from the very first horn my dad bought me"), and she agrees to marry him on one condition : that he go on the methadone program and stay off heroin forever. Chet agrees, and it works. Soon he gets a simple gig playing with amateurs at a pizza parlor. Then he convinces his manager to come see him. His musicianship has improved enough for the manager to line up a recording session, and all of a sudden - Chet Baker is back! This leads us to the dramatic climax, the one the movie's been leading up to. Baker has never forgotten the insults Miles Davis hurled at him all those years ago. "Sounds pretty..... real sweet like candy. Come back when you've lived a little".
"Well, I have", he thinks to himself. "I've been through hell. So get ready, Miles, because this White cat is coming back to New York, and he's gonna eat you up". He contacts his old friend Dizzy Gillespie, who agrees he sounds good, but wonders if Chet can handle the pressure. "Are you sure you're ready for New York? I mean, this is the big time Chettie. You know all the heaviest cats are gonna be there, wonderin' if the White boy's still got it. Miles, especially".
"That's what I'm hopin' for", says Baker. Unspoken but even more worrisome to Dizzy, however, is the temptation that will also be present. Drugs saturate the jazz scene, especially "H". With the help of Jane, who he leans on for strength, Baker has already turned down one offer of a fix, made by a groupie. But now - and here's the pivot point - she says she can't accompany him to New York. "I've just landed an audition, Chet. The biggest one of my career". She's trying to make it in show business too, and she wants him to appreciate her ambition. "It's only for three days", she tells him. "You can make it through on your own".
But can he? Will he make it through the gig - the biggest show of his life - without going back on the needle?
Watch and see for yourself. It's an excellent film, very moving, and you'll gain a whole new perspective on Chet Baker if you've followed his life story at all. Two Big Thumbs Up, and another stellar performance from Ethan Hawke. Highly recommended! //////
It was a Double Musical Biopic Weekend, and our other feature was "The Buddy Holly Story", which was a surprise hit upon it's release in 1978, and relaunched the legend of another musical genius, one who's hardest habit was Coke, as in Coca-Cola. I remember reading the reviews when the movie came out. The critics raved about it, and about Gary Busey's performance which was mildly controversial in some circles because of his age (35 playing the 22 year old Buddy), and the fact that he barely resembled Buddy Holly. Overall, though, both Busey and the movie went down a storm. But I had no intention of seeing it, because at 18, I knew what was cool and what wasn't, and rock stars from the '50s - especially geeky ones who wore glasses -were decidedly not cool. They weren't Judas Priest, in other words.
What an effect time has on one's perspective.
I think I've mentioned this before, but as the years went by, I'd hear "Peggy Sue" or "It's So Easy" or "Oh Boy" somewhere. Not on the radio, because I was only listening to KMET or KLOS, hard rock stations donchaknow. But I'd hear Buddy's songs in a movie, or on TV (maybe in a commercial), or even in the supermarket, and slowly but surely, I'd find myself humming the hooks. Still, even in my twenties, if you'd asked me my opinion, I'd have said "Buddy Holly? Sorry, not my thing". I'd leave out "geek" by then (I'd advanced that much from my teen years), but he still wasn't Judas Priest or Motorhead, and he certainly wasn't Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Greatness has a way of impressing itself upon you, however, if you're really a fan of something and you stick around long enough. For me, it took about 30 years. In my mid-40s, I finally began to appreciate early rock music. I bought a copy of Elvis' Greatest Hits and his gospel compilation. When Youtube came along I started watching videos of classic 50s performers like Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent. And about ten years ago, I started really listening to Buddy Holly. And it hit me : "This guy's freakin' great". Great in every respect, as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a fantastic guitar player. No less than Ritchie Blackmore has mentioned him as an influence, which gives you some idea, but the point is, even though it took me decades to appreciate it, his music was great from the start, and that's what is demonstrated in the movie. Buddy Holly was an originator who more or less invented the guitar-based rock band. Oh yeah, there was Bill Haley and Chuck Berry who came a year earlier, and Elvis too, but they were promoted as solo stars. With Buddy it was "Buddy Holly and The Crickets" (from which The Beatles took their name), and the music had a guitar-bass-and drums drive to it that exceeded even the pulse in Berry's songs. Simply stated, Buddy Holly rocked, and this is what the movie shows more than anything. He straight-up rocked like it was in his blood, like he couldn't help it, and he also knew the value of a Killer Hook, of which his songs were filled.
"The Buddy Holly Story" plays like a standard rock n' roll biography, focusing on the moment he and The Crickets were discovered, playing in a roller rink. It tells the story more or less in chronological order, right up to his final show in Clearlake, Iowa, just two and a half years later. Along the way, he meets Maria Elena Santiago, who was working for his first record label, and they fall in love. This is the most touching part of the story, because she only spent 18 months with Buddy before he died, but became his wife and soul mate during that time. I had to Google her after the movie to see if she was still alive, and she is. She remarried eventually, but later divorced. Perhaps her heart was always with Buddy because today, at 88 years of age, she still administers all the rights to his music and has even created a charity called The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation to help aspiring musicians.
At the beginning of this blog we mentioned Chet Baker's notoriety as a drug addict. Gary Busey acquired a similar rep over the years, and went through a period of craziness in which he almost lost his life in a motorcycle accident. But he's proven quite resilient and is not only still alive but still a working actor at age 77, and truth be told he's damn good when he wants to be. In "The Buddy Holly Story" he knocks the ball clean out of the park, not only capturing the energy of Buddy in concert but actually singing the songs himself for the movie. It'll make you feel good about life, and music, and it'll make you a fan of Buddy Holly if you weren't to begin with. To me, he's the real King of Rock n' Roll.
Two Huge Thumbs Up, it's a must see. /////
That's all I know for the moment. I hope you had a nice day. I send you Tons and Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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