sgcim

The first question I ask drummers I work with nowadays, since seeing "Beware of Mr. Baker", is what they think of GB as a jazz drummer. A big band, Buddy Rich-type drummer said words to the effect of, "Get the fuck outta here." A bebop drummer, who's more open-minded, considered it for a few minutes, but wound up saying GTFOH, also. However, I did a gig with the great Italian drummer, Giampaolo Biagi, who was in Europe when Baker was playing jazz, and he defended Baker's rep as a jazz drummer against the condemnation of some older musicians. He said Ginger stood up very well in his drum battles with Max Roach, Elvin Jones and Art Blakey.

Sadly, one of the guys said that Aaron passed away last week, and they had the funeral two days ago on Sunday. He said Aaron was 91 when he passed. Everyone was shocked to hear about it. He passed away after a fall caused a hip fracture, and he died as a result of an infection from the fracture. One of the guys was talking about how Aaron was child prodigy on the clarinet, and was expected to be the next Artie Shaw. He claimed that Aaron had gotten involved with drugs when he married Helen Merrill, and that had derailed his career, but the guy who said that was just speaking from rumors that were circulating back then. Aaron himself had told me that he was supposed to be the 'great white hope' in response to Bird, but it didn't work out for some reason. He once told me about walking down Broadway at that time and running into Bird, who said to him, "I know who you are, but don't go thinking you're something special"! Another time he told me that John Lewis heard him practicing Bach on the flute before a concert he did with him and was surprised that he was playing classical music, because all the other guys were too busy getting high. Aaron studied arranging with Hall Overton, and we played his arrangements in the two bands we both played in. He wrote a great chart featuring himself on Tenor on "Who Can I Turn To", and it was a profound experience to hear him improvise on tenor. I could best describe his tenor sound as a cross between Getz and Paul Desmond, and his improvisations were melodically very deep, definitely on the level of the melodic giants, such as Giuffre, Getz, Young, and Desmond. I've got a disc and a tape he gave me of live concerts he did on clarinet with a quartet featuring Janice Friedman, and a trio featuring Joe Puma. On clarinet, he sounded more mainstream and technical than his Tenor playing. Although he was a first call studio player, and could sight read anything, improvisation was where he was truly at. He turned to me on a gig we were playing with charts, and dramatically said, "You see all those notes on the page- they mean absolutely nothing. Nothing!" I'm really going to miss him. The younger guys and guys around my age, don't have that special melodic thing that Aaron and the few deep jazz players left had. Not many left. Thank God I still play with a few. RIP, Aaron.

The guys in the band that I'm playing with tonight should know about Aaron. All the best, older players from the Bronx used to play in it, but they're gradually passing. We already lost Eddie Bert, and Aaron's been in bad shape recently. I was playing regularly with Aaron for the last 20 years, but he retired a year or two ago. I've written a lot here about his significance in jazz history, Although he was about 90, he still had the attitude of a young guy. On the last gig we did together, he said to me, "It looks like they don't care about our music anymore." Based on what's going on in jazz today, I'd have a hard time disagreeing with him...

Thanks for the link. Has anyone heard any of the Connor, Sloane or other LPs he played on? Was there a Bill Evans thing in his playing?

Guitar

Reading the Dennard thread got me thinking about other obscure pianists. Last night, I did a gig in NYC with a pianist I never heard of before named Johnny Morris. It turned out he played on some small group Buddy Rich sessions back in the 60s, "Playtime" and "Blues Caravan", and went on a State Dept. tour with BR. i found this on youtube: He still plays classic swing piano, and I found myself thinking of Teddy Wilson during his solos. Another guy that I used to work with a lot who's still around is Mike Alterman, a fine musician. He played on the Woody Herman LP "East Meets West", and has a great solo on an up tempo blues. He went on the road with Chet Baker for eight months, and it was so traumatic, he refused to talk about it. I played with the great bass player, Frank Tate, also last night, and he mentioned a guy named Bill Rubenstein (Rubinstein?), whom he described as playing like Bill Evans, before BE started playing like BE. I did a search on him, and the only recordings he played on were a few Chris Connor LPs, and a Carol Sloane LP, "Live on 30th St." Anyone familiar with him?

We didn't get into his attitude toward women when I interviewed him for Down Beat back in 1968 or '69. But he was on a personal level as mean as a snake, even rather cruel (though I admit that in my still callow relative youthfulness and anxiety to please I left him an opening or two that I shouldn't have). The interview took place by a motel swimming pool with most of the Mothers within earshot, and they (Don Shelton, especially) were more or less appalled at the way Zappa had behaved and gathered around after he'd left to say a good many insightful things about the band that helped to make the experience a success after all, at least journalistically. I used to work with a drummer who went on tour with Zappa as a percussionist, and he said that FZ treated the musicians like dogs. And then there's his two famous quotes about jazz: "Jazz, the music of unemployment". "Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny..."

Great show! They played "Step Lightly" by Blue Mitchell, which Leonard Lopate uses as the theme for his daily radio show on WNYC. I've been wondering what tune that was for a long time. I was in a used record store recently, and they played a Herbie Nichols tune that LL also uses as break music on the show. I didn't know that one, and had to ask the record store guy who it was.

I just read the Oscar Peterson article, and you obviously understand OP's playing, so I take back what I said concerning your stance on OP. I recently read "Miles on Miles", and if one were to confront him on everything he said in his interviews, it would take years. Miles liked to put people on. When my personal deity, Bill Evans, was asked to join the MD group, Miles told him he would have to give a blow job to everyone in the band, if he wanted the gig. Bill thought for a minute, and said, "I'm sorry Miles, I don't think I can do that." Miles broke out laughing, and told BE he was just kidding.

I only heard that one tune "Charade". It sounded like Tootie used a high school student on that cut. Maybe the rest of it is good, but EI sounded like a triad playing rocker on it.

???? OP = Oscar Peterson EI = Ethan Iverson Cranshaw is a big fan of the former; Iverson I assume is not. Yeah, I'm going back to EI's interview with Fred Hersch, where they both dismissed OP as not even worthy of comment in their odd,little version of the history of jazz piano. I guess I can understand that after hearing EI's pitiful attempt at playing Mancini's "Charade" on Albert Heath's latest album...

Great interview, I'm glad he shoved OP down EI's throat.

Some primo Hank Jones on that. KCR played it a few times on their tribute.

As a kid, I went to the "Guitar Album" concert at Town Hall in NYC. http://www.amazon.com/The-Guitar-Album-featuring-Guitarists/dp/B0013ZH1WQ It was a pretty eclectic concert with people like Tiny Grimes, Chuck Wayne (he had an electric bass player, and I didn't know what they were doing), John McLaughlin (with his wife playing autoharp; they were both dressed in white robes), Joe Beck, George Barnes and Bucky Pizzarelli, and Charlie Byrd.

Ricky Lawson... Corrected, thanks!

Try to find the video they made of the "Two Against Nature, Live, plush Jazz-Rock Party. IMHO, it's the best video of a live show I've ever seen. They play some of their old tunes, and some of the new material from Two Against Nature. They open as powerfully as humanly possible with a horn soli from "Green Earings". The Highlights: Rhythm section of Tom Varney on bass, and the late Ricky Lawson on drums(!). Some dynamite tenor solos by Cornelius Bumpus Classic backup vocalist choreography by the black chick backup vocalist. Only Downside: Too much Walter Becker noodling on that POS Sadowski.

And yet, Neil Peart, Mickey Hart, Bill Ward, Lars Ullrich, Stewart Copeland and Nick Mason all took part in the documentary, and acknowledge GB as both the founding father of rock drumming, and their main inspiration for playing the drums. There are some reasons for his seemingly insane attitude: 1) He's got a serious case of degenerative osteo-arthritis, and is playing in intense pain whenever he picks up the drumsticks, and can't practice anymore. 2) He's got COPD, and has to use an oxygen mask. 3) He made and lost literally fortunes by: a) Taking the money he made from Cream and Blind Faith, and paying the salaries of the 12 member GB Air Force, without taking a cent for himself b) Using the rest of that money to build the first recording studio in Africa (which took three years), and then got it taken away from him by the Nigerian police, as they shot at him speeding away in his range rover. c) Building and funding a Veterinary Clinic He's extremely bitter about Jack Bruce and Pete Brown getting all the residuals from Cream when he was responsible for the 5/4 bolero in "White Room", and changing the tempo from JB's original fast, to a much hipper sounding medium tempo in "Sunshine of Your Love". He had to work as a firefighter in Colorado, and an olive farmer in Italy for many years. He's totally broke now. While I'm not saying that any of this justifies his ranting and raving, it does put his life in perspective...

I don't think ANYBODY would give you an argument on him being a POS as a person (especially his family- he told his first wife. "If you think you come before my drums, you can just walk out of this house right now", or his son the drummer, who he abandoned, telling him, "You can't swing to save your life- just give it up"), but as far as music is concerned, he is generally recognized by most rock drummers as the very archetype of rock drumming itself. His six years in Africa studying African drumming and playing in Fela Kuti's band were groundbreaking. As far as jazz went, drummers like Phil Seamen, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Mel Lewis and Art Blakey highly respected him. Check out the groove he laid down with Charlie Haden here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEpMLiqzZd8 With a more mainstream soloist, this could've been some concert...

Be very careful if you decide to speak to him. One wrong word, and he'll set on you like a leopard on a zebra! He broke the director's nose with his cane when he told Baker he was going to talk to all the people in his past. When the director asked him if he played with Mick Jagger, he mimmicked the director saying: "Ooh, did you play with Mick Jagger?" He then described the experience thusly: "This little effeminate-looking kid came up, and tried to sing one number. I said to Jack (Bruce), who is this stupid looking little c-nt? What's he doing here? Jack and I threw some jazz things in there- completely threw him off! He was terrified of me!" (chuckles). He said the reason why he named his band Ginger Baker's Air Force is that that was the nickname for the junkie section of Duke Ellington's Orchestra.

Kind of ironic that he's playing at Yoshi's; in the doc. he couldn't get a gig in LA when he lived there after coming back from Africa. The West Coast musicians were scared to death of him. He even placed an ad in some music magazine, begging for work. Under 'Previous Experience' it read: "Drummer for Graham Bond Organization, Cream, Blind Faith etc.." They wouldn't even let him join any Polo Clubs in the entire state, so he took off for Colorado, where he started his own Polo Club/ Jazz Night with Ron Miles' jazz group. He's got severe degenerative osteo-arthritis and COPD, so don't expect miracles...

I did a few shows with him back in the 90s. Seemed like a nice guy. RIP, Jerry.

He was great in "Let's Get Lost". RIP, Mr. Strazzeri

Baker seemed to have adopted four jazz drummers, Max Roach, Elvin, Art Blakey and Phil Seamen as his father figures. His father died in WW II when GB was about five. I've watched the part that deals with Baker playing in the Graham Bond Organization, Cream and Blind Faith, four times, and I still can't stop laughing. Baker apparently hated Jack Bruce after he switched from upright to electric bass, and the present day interviews with Baker and Bruce have to be seen to be believed. Commenting on them would be ruining all the fun- see this doc!

It's streaming on Netflix, now! Worth watching just to hear him put down rock drummers like John Bonham and Keith Moon, and then break into tears when he declares that the thing he was most proud of was the fact that he was close friends with, and respected by Art Blakey, Elvin Jones and Phil Seamen