Baker was known for the clarity and ease of his tone as a trumpeter, and the preternatural calm, quiet, and reflectiveness of his singing, the way in which he could, “somehow,” as the Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi puts it, “express the question mark of life in so few notes." Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals (Chet Baker Sings, It Could Happen to You) and Jazz historian David Gelly has described the promise of Baker's early career as "James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one." But Baker began using heroin in the 1950s, resulting in an addiction that lasted the remainder of his life, landing him in and out of jail and partly driving his notoriety and fame. His career enjoyed a resurgence in the late 1970s and '80s, during which time he lived in Europe, recording and touring, for most of the ten years prior to his death. On May 13, 1988 Baker was found dead on the street below his second-story room of Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam, in what was almost certainly a suicide, but ruled an accidental if drug-induced fall.