Looking for Chet Baker

by Bill Moody

  Fletcher calls my name, and I stand up for a quick bow, but the show is his. “We have one more set here at the Bimhuis,” he says on the microphone. “We hope you stay around.”

  A tall, thin man about forty climbs up on the stage and comes toward Fletcher. He has a crew cut and lightly tinted glasses. Fletcher takes him by the elbow and brings him over to the piano. He smiles at me and extends his hand. “You two are wonderful together,” he says. “Just wonderful. I am Eric Hagen.”

  We shake, and Fletcher beams behind him. “Hello,” I say. “Glad you enjoyed the music.”

  “Oh, yes, very much. Please, we must talk.” We go into a small room behind the stage to avoid the crowds. It’s cluttered with instrument cases and several cartons of wine and beer stacked against the wall. Fletcher shuts the door, putting the din of the club behind us.

  “So, Fletcher has told you of my proposition?”

  “Yes,” I say. “It sounds very interesting.”

  “My club is small, nothing like this, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I have a very fine piano also.” He looks to Fletcher for confirmation.

  “I stopped by the other afternoon,” Fletcher says. “Pretty cool.”

  “So,” Hagen continues, “I would like to start next weekend, as a sort of trial, then we will talk more about a long-term arrangement.” He looks at us both.

  “I’m for it,” Fletcher says.

  “Me too.”

  Hagen grins at us both. “Excellent. Fletcher, I will call you on Monday, then, and we will make the final arrangements. I’m sorry I cannot stay longer this evening. It was very nice to meet you, Evan. I look forward to next week, then.”

  After he goes out, Fletcher and I look at each other for a moment, and then both of us laugh and slap hands. “I told you you’d like Amsterdam,” he says.

  Yes, and now I have some time.

  Chapter Ten

  Sunday morning breaks quietly. After the excitement of closing night and the confirmation of the new gig, I don’t sleep as long as I thought I would, but it’s just as well. I want to get checked out of this hotel and over to my new digs with Fletcher. I shower and dress, pack my bag, then take one last look around the room, a ritual I’ve performed before in countless hotels on the road. Nothing left behind unless I want it left.

  Ace, I remind myself once more, would have done the same if he’d departed the Prins Hendrik Hotel under normal circumstances. Ace wanted that portfolio left behind, and he wanted me to find it.

  I take a final look out the window to the street below, the canal bridge at the end, bustling with people and traffic and inevitable bicycles. I won’t see this view again.

  At the front desk, the clerk tallies the charges for me from the bar, and I pay for the extra phone calls. Everything else has been prepaid by Walter Offen. Nothing left to do but call Fletcher from the lobby phone.

  “Hey, Fletch, you up and ready for your new boarder?”

  “Yeah, if I have to be,” Fletcher says sleepily. “You coming over now?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to grab some coffee and get a taxi.”

  “Okay. At the hotel? I’ll pick you up.”

  “Next to the hotel, a few doors down, is a coffee place. I’ll be in there or out front.”

  “Gotcha. Be there in about an hour.”

  “See you then,” I say and hang up the phone.

  Outside, I study once again the sculpture of Chet and the list of donors. Something clicks in my mind as I read the donor list of names, individuals, record companies. I wonder how much it cost. Who commissioned it? Who was the artist? I get a pad and pen out of my bag and quickly jot down all the names, then wander down to the coffee shop.

  I order coffee and a croissant while I try to decide what to do next, making a mental note to let Dekker know where I’m staying in case there’s some news. But I’m resigned to the idea that if anything develops, it will be of my own doing. Dekker may now officially make Ace a missing person and have the alert out, but the Old Quarter precinct is a busy one. A “possibly” missing tourist won’t be a high priority.

  I sip the coffee and try to put myself in Ace’s mind. After viewing the film at the archives, I’m convinced, Ace would backtrack Chet’s final days, starting with the Thelonious in Rotterdam, then work back to Amsterdam and the afternoon of May 12. Even with the information in the film, there were some gaps in time, and those gaps are what Ace would be looking to fill.

  Where was Chet, and what was he doing then? May 11 and 12, a couple of days and nights—why didn’t anyone know where he was? But what if somebody did know, and Ace found them, along with more than he could handle? If I could find that out, I might get closer to finding Ace. Dekker wasn’t going to do it, and he didn’t know anything about Chet Baker, musicians, or musicians’ friends, or what it was like for a junkie to be desperately looking for a fix. If Chet hadn’t come to Amsterdam until May 12, and he was last seen in Rotterdam, then he had to have had some contact there. That’s who I have to find.

  I put out my cigarette, finish my coffee, and glance out the window for Fletcher’s car. For a minute it all sounds plausible. On the other hand, this could all be nothing but Ace’s forgetfulness—losing his jacket, leaving the portfolio in the hotel. It is possible, but I’m not convinced. The jacket maybe, but not the portfolio. And now that it’s been taken from my room, too many more questions are bothering me. My gut feeling is too strong.

  Something has happened to Ace, or somebody is orchestrating his every move.

  I look out the window again and see Fletcher’s car pull up. I grab my bag and go out to meet him. Fletcher is curiously quiet as we make the short drive to his place. He wedges his car into a space dangerously close to the canal, between a small truck and a Mercedes. The parking is diagonal on the canal, parallel along the curb on the opposite side. There’s just enough room for a car to get down the narrow one-way street.

  “Good thing Margo has a permit,” Fletcher says, getting out of the car. We hear a tinkling bell, and both of us jump back between two cars. “Damn, all these years, and I still can’t get used to these bicycles.”

  I grin at him as we walk back up the street to Margo’s flat and my temporary home for who knows how long. “You ought to get one,” I say. “Take a photo and send it to Downbeat.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Fletcher says. “You just play the piano.”

  Inside, Fletcher hands me a key off the hall table. “That’s an extra,” he says.

  I’m to be in Margo’s room, where I woke up the day after what Fletcher called my reefer madness night. I make a little space in the closet for the few clothes I have with me and leave the small items in my bag. Fletcher stands in the doorway, watching me. “You do travel light,” he says.

  I shrug. “Yeah, well, I didn’t know if I was coming over for two weeks or two months. I can always pick up some things later if I need to—or I’ve got stuff in storage in L.A. I can send for if I stay longer.”

  “Well, make yourself at home. I’m going to practice. I try to get in a couple of hours every day. If you feel like it later, you can try out the piano.”

  I look at Fletcher. “Thanks for everything, man. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. I like the company, and you won’t see no ghosts here.” He wanders off to his room, and in a couple of minutes I hear his saxophone, running scales, playing exercises, while I check out the rest of the apartment.

  I wonder about Fletcher and his self-imposed exile. Like so many musicians who have chosen to stay in Europe, Fletcher is more welcome here than in his own country, but ironically he’s still playing American music.

  An apartment in Amsterdam is nothing like my old place in Venice Beach. I feel a twinge of nostalgia thinking about the beach, the long walks, the smell of the ocean. Here, it’s heavy wood furniture, large throw rugs on the wooden floors, and high ceilings. Sunlight streams in through the tall windows, their heavy drapes thrown ope
n now. The kitchen must have been remodeled at one time. It’s decked out with fairly modern appliances and a well-stocked refrigerator. I’ll have to work something out with Fletcher on the food, especially if his cooking lives up to his promise.

  In one corner of the living room is an upright piano. Some handwritten music sheets rest on the stand—probably tunes Fletcher’s working on. The upholstered wooden stool is the kind that’s raised and lowered by spinning the seat. I get it adjusted to my liking and sit down. The notes ring out loud and clear, surprisingly well in tune despite the dampness from the canal that must affect the piano. I run through some chords, play some scales, just warming up easily, and continue to marvel at my hand being so pain free.

  I’m aware of Fletcher playing in the other room, but it’s not enough to distract me. Once I catch a few moments of silence; then he resumes, playing on the tune I’m trying. An hour later, I’m used to the action of the piano and getting to like it. Then I sense Fletcher standing behind me, listening.

  “Not bad, huh?”

  I stop and turn around. “No, not at all. You have it tuned?”

  “Uh-huh, a couple of times. How about some lunch?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  I follow Fletcher into the kitchen and watch him at work. “Got some chicken left over from yesterday and some of my dirty rice. Sound okay?”

  “Whatever, I’m easy.”

  Fletcher nods and gets the rice going. “There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge. Why don’t you open that, and we’ll have us a little taste. You can tell me about your visit with the po-lice,” he says, emphasizing the first syllable. He opens a drawer and hands me a corkscrew.

  I watch Fletcher bustle around the kitchen, as at home here as he is on the bandstand. He gets the chicken simmering in a big cast-iron skillet and the rice in a saucepan. The room fills with the aroma of garlic and something I can’t make out. He slices several pieces of bread off a large loaf, turns down the chicken, and checks the rice. Everything under control.

  “Looks like you’ve done this a time or two before.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, everybody cooked in my family, and on the road with Basie, sometimes we’d get a location gig and set up shop. Try to find motels with kitchens. Some of the guys brought their own pans with them.”

  “Must have been some good times.”

  He smiles, remembering. “Oh, yeah. I got on after he reformed the band. Late fifties, early sixties. Just missed Joe Williams. Lot of good music, good times, good food, and yes, plenty of women.” He claps his hands together and does a little dance. “Don’t get me started on that. One thing I don’t miss, though, is that bus. No, baby.” He checks everything again and turns the heat down. “Why don’t you pick out some music? Then we’ll eat. Margo has a lot of stuff, and some of mine is mixed in there.”

  I take my wine and go into the living room. On shelves under the stereo is a large selection of compact discs and a sizable number of LPs. And yes, there is a turntable. I look through them and pick out an early Chet Baker, the band with Russ Freeman on piano, just as Fletcher comes through with two hot plates of chicken and rice.

  “Now, how did I know you were going to play one of those?” he says, sitting the plates on the table. “Come and get it.”

  We sit down and dig in. After a few bites I tell Fletcher if he ever quits playing he could always open a restaurant. “This is fantastic. What’s on the chicken?”

  He nods, obviously pleased. “Don’t ask. That’s my grandmother’s recipe, and the secret stays with me, white boy.”

  When we finish, Fletcher opens the window, and we each have a cigarette with the rest of the wine, and listen to Chet Baker. I tell Fletcher about Russ Freeman’s comments in the film, how Chet really didn’t know harmony. “He said all Chet wanted to know was the first note, and he just took it from there. He must have had a phenomenal ear.”

  “Yeah,” Fletcher says. “You could put changes in front of him, and they didn’t mean nothing. I heard guys try to fool him and tell him wrong keys. Shit, it was them who got in trouble. Chet just played, man. I don’t think he even knew how he did it. Sang the same way. Let me show you something.”

  He goes over to the stereo shelf and searches through some videotapes, finds what he’s looking for, slides the cassette into the machine, and turns on the television. “Margo got this. It was made at Ronnie Scott’s club in London about a year before he died.”

  There’s an opening shot of Chet sitting on a stool, just staring at his trumpet, as if he’s gathering strength to play, or deciding whether to even pick it up. The camera stays with him for what seems like a long time before he turns to the piano player and they begin. No drums, just Chet, piano, and bass.

  The song is “Just Friends,” an easy loping tempo, but Chet is clearly struggling, although the pianist feeds him one luscious chord after another. He manages a couple of choruses, then listens to the piano and bass, head down. Then he sings. It’s not that young boy voice anymore. It’s deepened, become rougher, but has more emotion. He strains here too, as if he’s not going to make it, but somehow he does, wrapping his voice around the familiar standard, making you pull for him in the process. He scats one chorus too, the phrasing sounding exactly like his trumpet playing, as if to say, I can’t do it with the horn anymore, but this is what it would sound like if I could. There’s no showy technique, no vibrato to his voice at all. He ends on a very hip little flurry of notes and smiles. But he looks so tired. He follows with a couple of ballads and a tricky little bop blues line of Kenny Dorham’s he plays in unison with the pianist.

  Chet Baker playing and singing pure jazz. It’s not playing with soul—it is his soul.

  We listen to a few more, then Fletcher gets up and stops the tape. “That’s the best stuff,” he says. “Couple of pop singers come on with him. Don’t know what they were doing there. Trying to sell records, I guess. That Kenny G character still selling a lot?”

  “Oh, yeah. Millions.”

  Fletcher says, “He’s the anti-Bird, but I guess he’s getting to some folks.”

  “Chet’s playing really gets to you, doesn’t it? It does me, anyway.”

  “Uh-huh, and his thing is as secret as my grandmother’s chicken recipe.”

  I think for a moment, the film images and sound still in my mind. “He’d be what, about your age, if he’d lived, right?”

  Fletcher nods. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Wonder what he’d be doing now?”

  “Same thing.” Fletcher shrugs. “Playing jazz and scoring dope. Somebody asked him once, ‘What’s the worst thing about drugs?’ Know what he said?”

  “What?”

  “The price.”

  I shake my head. “I wonder if he just meant money. To play like that. What a waste.”

  “Got a lot of folks. Got hold of Chet early and wouldn’t let go. Everybody else from those times either cleaned up or died.” Fletcher gets up and stretches. “Well, since you enjoyed my cooking so much, I know you won’t mind doing the dishes. I’ll make some coffee.”

  We get the kitchen cleared up and go back to the living room. He picks the music this time: Miles at Lincoln Center in 1964 with George Coleman on tenor. They’re doing that band’s version of “All of You.” Near the end of Coleman’s solo, Fletcher puts up his hand. “Check this out.”

  They’ve doubled the tempo from the original ballad start by then. Coleman plays a flurry of sixteenth notes, then slides into the vamp that started the whole thing and sets up Herbie Hancock’s solo.

  “Damn,” Fletcher says. “That just kills me. Left Herbie Hancock something to think about.” After Herbie, Miles comes back, all forlorn and mournful, like a little kid wanting to be let into the room. “Okay, I’m done,” Fletcher says. He turns down the stereo. “Now tell me about the police.”

  I recap my visit with Detective Engels, and my surprise that Dekker already had the portfolio before I c
ould tell him I had it.

  “Damn,” Fletcher says, “this is getting weird.”

  “Yeah, they’re treating it officially as a missing person case now, but that doesn’t mean much. If Ace is going to be found, I think I’m going to have to do it.” Fletcher doesn’t say anything for a moment. I pause and look at him. “What?”

  “I was just thinking. Maybe I’m out of line here, but…but, I know this is your friend, but aren’t you maybe taking it too far? Shouldn’t you just let the police handle it from here?”

  “Yes, you’re probably right, and given what’s happened before, I should know better. Ace is my friend, but it’s more than that. After my accident, I didn’t play much at all. I couldn’t. I lost my confidence. I thought for a while I’d never play again. And then Ace arranged this gig for me. He pulled some strings with the music department at UNLV—the department supplied piano students—got me in on it as a guest. It was a dumb gig, at a shopping mall in Las Vegas, but it got me playing again.” I look at Fletcher. “I owe him, Fletch. I have to find him.”

  Fletcher nods. “Yeah, I can see that. I just wanted to know where you’re coming from. I still say just let the police handle it, but I know people have told you that before and it didn’t do any good, so I’m not going to bother trying to convince you otherwise. So what’s your plan?”

  “Try to do what I think Ace would have done. Retrace Chet’s last few days. They have it in the film, part of it, at least. He was at the Thelonious in Rotterdam on May 7, and three nights later, he dropped in and played a couple of tunes at the Dizzy Café with the band there.”

  Fletcher nods. “I know them both.”

  “If I talk to people there, I can at least find out if Ace has been to Rotterdam.” I tell Fletcher about my suspicion that Chet had some other contact there for drugs. “It was two days before he showed up in Amsterdam again on the twelfth. He would have been hurting. I don’t know what else to do. You have any ideas?”