Ginger Baker Jazz Confusion
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Ginger Baker Jazz Confusion “The Musician least likely to survive the 60’s...” ..now on stage with Pee Wee Ellis, Alec Dankworth & Abass Dodoo. ‘Being a fan of Ginger Baker for 40 years I saw him again at the Old Market in Hove ... he plays better now than ever!’– Herman Rarebell, drummer of the Scorpions Ginger Baker Jazz Confusion - a powerhouse of Jazz & African Fusion - Ginger Baker Jazz Confusion They once voted Ginger Baker as 'the musician least likely to survive the 60s'. Now, four and a bit decades later, Ginger proved them all wrong, returned to the UK and formed a formidable quartet with funk and jazz giant Pee Wee Ellis, tenor sax, Alec Dankworth, bass, and Abass Dodoo, percussion. The music is a healthy mix of Thelonius Monk, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, plus originals of Pee Wee Ellis and Mr. Baker, a challenging and fresh sounding program! Ginger Baker and Ghanaian percussionist Abass Dodoo provide a perfect powerhouse of rhythms. After an extremely successful debut at Ronnie Scott's Club in London earlier this year, Ginger Baker Jazz Confusion continues with shows throughout UK and is now ready to play their highly charged mix of jazz, fusion and African sounds in theatres in Europe and the Middle and Far East. click & contact Ina Dittke & Associates for bookings now Hall of Fame - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1992 - - Grammy Lifetime Achievment Award 2005 - - Zildjian Top Drummer Award 2008 - - Modern Drummer Hall of Fame 2010 - - Classic Drummer Hall of Fame 2011 - Story Ginger Baker Ginger Baker’s recognition as a drummer began during the Graham Bond Organisation in the early sixties. The band toured with The Who, The Troggs, The Moody Blues and Chuck Berry, attracting press interest for their outrageous behaviour and riotous fun. In 1964 Baker was considered ‘one of Britain’s great drummers’ by Melody Maker journalist, Chris Welch. While Baker was impressing music journalists, he was also attracting attention from other musicians, one of them being Eric Clapton. The two met, jammed, saw one another play in their then current bands, added bass player Jack Bruce and formed Cream. In Baker’s own words they created ‘instant magic’ and began touring earning £45 per show, to later smashing box office records previously set by The Beatles. After Cream, came Blind Faith. Baker and Clapton were joined by Steve Winwood and Rick Grech to make just one album. When Clapton and Winwood left to further their own projects, the remaining members went on to form jazz rock fusion band ‘Ginger Baker’s Airforce’ adding sax, flute, organ and extra percussion to the band. During a trip to Africa Baker found himself moved and inspired by Nigerian radio. Despite the war zone in that part of the country he was adamant about visiting Nigeria and pushed to set up a recording studio in Lagos. When it opened as ‘Batakota Studios’ Paul McCartney arrived with Wings to record part of his ‘Band on the Run’ album. Music aside, Africa gave Baker a wonderful climate to live in and a healthier lifestyle than that of rock n roll and touring. He discovered his love for polo and rally driving. Baker’s work with Airforce and friendship with Fela Kuti pathed the way for Baker’s next musical project: to work with African musicians. A live album was recorded in Abbey Road studios under the name of ‘Fela Ransome - Kuti and Africa 70 with Ginger Baker’. He then went on to form English rock group The Baker Gurvitz Army in which Baker was also involved with providing extra sounds for their debut album. The wheel spins from his Jensen FF were used for their song ‘Mad Jack’. He also rode a wheeled swivel chair backwards down a flight of stairs for a second track on their debut album. After setting up a second recording studio, this time in North London, Baker formed ‘Energy’. Since then he’s performed at various live events such as Verona’s Percussion Summit and his own unmissable 70th birthday party with special guest, Steve Winwood, at Camden’s Jazz Café. His latest project Ginger Baker Jazz Confusion, starring Pee Wee Ellis on sax, Alec Dankworth on bass and Abass Dodoo on percussion, made its 2012 debut at Ronnie Scott's Club in London. Their show sold out 4 times, bringing the crowd that powefull fusion of Jazz and African rhythms. Documentary Beware Of Mr Baker, directed by Jay Bulger, premiered in America March 2012 at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where it was the Grand Jury Award Winner for Documentary Feature. In the UK, The documentary includes stories from his ex- wives, children, and many of the greatest living musicians that worked with Ginger, including Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Watts, Mickey Hart, Carlos Santana, Max Weinberg, Chad Smith, Femi Kuti, Neal Peart, Simon Kirke, Marky Ramone and many more. This documentary is one such story – a marriage of the film and music worlds through the life of one of the most unforgettable and controversial musicians. He was there the night Jimi Hendrix died, shared the drugs, the music, the names, the groups, while stripping away the other voices as the conductor, time keeper, the master drummer of our time. Beware of Mr. Baker catapults the viewer into his beat – with every smash of the bass drum there is a man behind it smashing his way through life. You can find out more at the film’s official website, bewareofmrbaker.com Press Ginger Baker Jazz approach. Deceptively crude African polyrhythms fused brilliantly with heavy dub Confusion bass lines on sessions such as 1990's Middle Passage (Axiom), and I've always preferred Ginger Baker in Glasgow these sessions to the string of largely forgettable straight ahead sets the drummer Fred Grand reports that the former cut for Atlantic. Although he featured players Cream drummer has found in his new such as Bill Frisell, Ron Miles and James Carter, group with Alec Dankworth and Pee Baker's touch frequently seemed just too Wee Ellis a balance that plays to his heavy, dragging the beat and simply not strengths, cracking that elusive jazz nut "swinging" (however you define that rather once and for all nebulous phenomenon). For the final night of the 2012 Glasgow jazz Few headliners at a jazz festival can claim to festival, Baker brought his new group Jazz have been voted the person least likely to Confusion to the city's Old Fruitmarket. With survive the 1960s. With a celebrated notoriety former James Brown hornman Pee Wee Ellis as a hell-raiser who explored the rock & roll (tenor saxophone), the versatile Alec lifestyle to its full potential, Ginger Baker can Dankworth (acoustic and electric basses) and lay legitimate claim to that slightly dubious Ghanaian percussion master Abass Dodoo, this mantle. He found his eternal niche with Eric slightly improbable aggregate always seemed Clapton and Jack Bruce in the rock power trio likely to be capable of surprise. And so it Cream. The group stretched conventional song turned out to be – with heavy tribal rhythms forms to breaking point and foregrounded and deep pulsing bass lines, the Laswell sound improvisation to an almost unprecedented had found an effective acoustic voice and built extent. Their brief career is perhaps as crucial a clever bridge between leftfield and as the influence of Hendrix in turning the ears mainstream. of Miles Davis, giving Baker at least a tangential relationship to the direction taken On the opening number, Wayne Shorter's by jazz in the 1970s. An African sojourn saw Footprints, the drummer's rather leaden the drummer falling for the vibrant rhythms of approach didn't immediately win me over. Ellis the continent and changed his musical outlook carried the line with great authority and forever. Dankworth's presence provided a rock-solid Although Baker has "dabbled" on-and-off with backbone, but the piece felt slightly static until jazz for many years, it has usually been his my ears had attuned to the largely non- more crossover projects in collaboration with Western approach to rhythm. With a rich post- the likes of Bill Laswell, Nicky Skopelitis and Coltrane sound, Ellis certainly knows his way Jonas Hellborg that have best suited his unique around the instrument's false fingerings and After the break Charlie Haden's Ginger Blues multiphonics and seems to have hidden his saw Baker at perhaps his most limber, and it talents under a bushel of funk for most of his positively smouldered. Cyril Davies, a career. Given the group's leaning towards dedication to the late British blues pioneer, tribal percussion, the composite sound wasn't brought a noticeable change of mood. Those unlike Kahil El'Zabar's "Ritual Trio", and tribal rhythms became almost monolithic and Ellisshowed a surprising kinship to Ari Brown Ellis played his most astringently free solo of and Fred Anderson. Monk's Bemsha Swing was the evening. Yet no matter how expressionistic cleverly rearranged to allow Baker's almost the piece became, there was always a groove steel pan-like approach to accent the theme, or a faint blue line for the spellbinding with Dankworth's solo a model of invention saxophonist to follow. Before we knew it we'd within a groove and Ellis's deep Rouse-like arrived at the encore, Rollins' calypso-inspired tenor wringing every nuance out of the theme. St Thomas, where a set of steel pans really wouldn't have gone amiss. Several of the saxophonist's compositions were featured in the set, the loose and bluesy In Jazz Confusion, Baker has somewhat Twelve And More Bluesbeing fairly typical and ironically found a new jazz clarity.