Alternately hailed as the greatest white trumpeter of all time and derided as a facile pretty boy coasting on natural talent, Chet Baker epitomizes the seamy, tragic allure of the beautiful loser. In the words of Steve Allen, one of many who lent Baker a wasted helping hand, Baker "began as James Dean and ended up as Charles Manson." Born to a dysfunctional lower-middle-class family, Baker effortlessly mastered the trumpet at a young age, eventually becoming one of the most popular and ubiquitous artists in jazz, although many attributed his success more to his dreamy good looks than to his musical ability. Baker was blessed and cursed with an almost feminine beauty, and his image and music seemed to emanate from an infinitely more romantic universe. He seduced millions with his honeyed voice and melancholy playing, but his personal relationships were generally one-sided, abusive, and parasitic. Therein lies the question that attracts Baker's formidable cult: How could something as gorgeous as Baker's music come out of something as bleak as his life? In Deep In A Dream, the first major Baker biography, James Gavin explores the paradoxes of the trumpeter's life, from his early heyday through his decades as an expatriate heroin addict with an appetite for self-destruction. In 1998, documentarian and fashion photographer Bruce Weber directed Let's Get Lost, an Oscar-nominated documentary that touched on the ugliness of Baker's life but swooned over his decaying but still-potent glamour. Gavin's biography, in sharp contrast, holds Baker at arm's length. Exhaustively researched, though sometimes clumsily written, Gavin's account at times feels less like a proper biography than a list of reasons why Baker is currently burning in hell. But before it devolves into a deadening chronology of drug busts, bad behavior, and negative reviews, Deep In A Dream vividly depicts a '50s-era jazz world where drugs and music were hopelessly intertwined, and Baker reigned as an icon of laconic beatnik cool. Half Greek tragedy, half Jerry Springer Show, Baker's life has long held a strange attraction for dreamers of all stripes. Gavin's biography, however, reveals him to be largely a mirage: shimmering and beautiful from a distance, but ultimately illusory.