THE DAMAGE DONE JAZZ LEGEND CHET BAKER CREATED BEAUTIFUL MUSIC AMID A LIFE OF DESTRUCTION.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Staff Writer

WHEN JAMES GAVIN began what turned out to be an exhaustive six years researching and writing ``Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker,'' he was warned what it would be like to delve into the troubled life of one of the jazz world's most romanticized and sinister figures.

``One of the first people I interviewed was Orrin Keepnews, a record producer who worked with Baker in the late '50s,'' Gavin recalls. ``And before he answered a question, he just said, 'Do you know what you're getting yourself into? This is going to suck you into a dark, dark hole.' And he was right. Wandering around in Chet Baker's life was an exhausting, frightening experience.''

Baker has long been an object of fascination, even for people who have little interest in his music. In his younger days, Baker was the Golden Boy of the West Coast jazz scene, making beautiful music in Los Angeles in the early 1950s with Gerry Mulligan and turning ``My Funny Valentine'' into a wan love song for the ages.

His stardom and dreamboat persona lasted for about five years, or until the time Baker became a heroin addict and the world's most-celebrated junkie. For the next three decades, he wandered, mostly through Europe, continuing to court trouble and make beautiful music (at least on the nights when he wasn't stoned). His pretty face eventually imploded into a death mask, and he died at the age of 59, falling (or was he pushed?) out of an Amsterdam hotel room window in 1989.

Gavin's book is the first thorough biography of Baker, and it's not for the faint of heart. ``Deep in a Dream'' is a study in contrasts. There's Baker the trumpeter and singer, a man who created tenderly sad and lyrically romantic music that could both pierce your soul and break your heart.

But Baker the man, according to Gavin and some who knew him, was completely insensitive, a user of people and only dedicated to one thing - scoring his next fix. Music was simply a means to buying drugs.

``Some people say I dwell too much on the dark side,'' notes Gavin, a 38-year-old writer who lives in New York. ``Well, there's not too much sunshine in the story. There aren't too many happy junkies. A lot people don't want to know the truth. People still have incredibly romantic feelings about Chet Baker and don't want to see all the ugliness.

``The thing is, myself included, when you have idols, you see a reflection of yourself or what you want to be in that person,'' Gavin continues. ``People don't want to think that the person they idolize can be a horrible human being.''

Not that Gavin hates Baker (which is what the New York Times book reviewer wrote). He loves Baker's music - Gavin calls it ``the best sex music you can find'' - and enthusiastically accepted a request from Blue Note Records to program an ``Ultimate Chet Baker Collection'' that was released simultaneously with his book.

But Gavin says the romantic music and Baker's mythical persona had created a fantasy image that obscured the truth. Thus, the musician was ripe for the picking for a good biographer.

Gavin interviewed Baker's family and friends and dozens of musicians who worked with him, compiling an exhaustive list of the jazzman's unhinged life. In the process, Gavin dispels several legends: that Baker lost his teeth in a late '60s mugging (he chipped a tooth; the teeth later had to be replaced because of the drugs); that Baker was ``discovered'' by Charlie Parker; that Baker was murdered (most likely, in a drug-induced stupor, he fell out of the window).

And yet the legend remains strong. There's another Baker book out right now, ``Looking for Chet Baker: An Evan Horne Mystery,'' that mixes fact and fiction and revels in the elusiveness inherent in the Baker persona. It's selling equally well.

``People love the idea that you can create great art out of a messy life,'' Gavin says. ``And his sound still seduces people. There are a lot of other musicians more acclaimed than Chet, but when you can touch off sadness in someone, you're touching them in a very deep way. And Chet Baker could do that.''

James Gavin will moderate a panel for ``A Celebration of Chet Baker'' on June 30 at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Blvd., Culver City. The event will include a musical tribute to Baker, led by pianist Frank Strazzeri and Jazz Bakery owner Ruth Price. Included on the Baker panel will be famed jazz photographer William Claxton, drummer Larance Marable, bassist Jimmy Bond and Strazzeri. Cost is $18. Call [phone].

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(1) James Gavin says writing a Chet Baker biography was ``exhausting, frightening.''

(2) ``Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker''

By James Gavin

416 pages, Knopf; $26.95