Chesney Henry Baker Jr. had the looks of a Hollywood teen idol, a voice that melted hearts, and a trumpet instinct so natural that Charlie Parker chose him for West Coast gigs. A few years later he had his front teeth knocked out in a street fight, lived on welfare, and pumped gas in California. This episode explores that paradox, starting in Yale, Oklahoma, in 1929 with a father who abandoned a guitar career during the Depression, a move to California in 1940, a trombone too heavy for a young teen, and a trumpet mastered within two weeks. The army became his accidental university, exposing him to Dizzy Gillespie through V-Discs in postwar Berlin and later placing him near San Francisco's bop clubs before his 1951 discharge.

The hosts cover the 1952 Gerry Mulligan Quartet and its counterpoint approach, the signature My Funny Valentine, beat ...