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Confusion

“The least likely to survive the 60’s...”

..now on stage with Pee Wee Ellis, & 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, 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 '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 Organisation in the early sixties. The toured with , The Troggs, The Moody and , attracting press interest for their outrageous behaviour and riotous fun. In 1964 Baker was considered ‘one of Britain’s great ’ by Melody Maker journalist, Chris Welch.

While Baker was impressing music journalists, he was also attracting attention from other , one of them being . The two met, jammed, saw one another play in their then current bands, added bass player 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 .

After Cream, came . Baker and Clapton were joined by and Rick Grech to make just one . 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 and pushed to set up a recording studio in . When it opened as ‘Batakota Studios’ Paul McCartney arrived with Wings to record part of his ‘’ 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 pathed the way for Baker’s next musical project: to work with African musicians. A live album was recorded in under the name of ‘Fela Ransome - Kuti and Africa 70 with Ginger Baker’.

He then went on to form English rock group The 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 ‘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 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, , Mickey Hart, Carlos Santana, , , 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 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 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 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 , Ron Miles and , 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 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 , 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 , and Coltrane sound, Ellis certainly knows his way that have best suited his unique

around the instrument's false fingerings and After the break '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. , a career. Given the group's leaning towards dedication to the late 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. Had there making a great blowing vehicle. Even Baker been a conventional harmony instrument in seemed to be swinging now, his large two bass the mix then this group would almost certainly drum kit sparking out crisp cross-rhythms with have been a less appealing prospect. As it the animated Dodoo. A decidedly off-kilter stood, the drummer seems at last to have variety of swing, it recalled the Art Ensemble found a balance that plays to his strengths, of Chicago in their prime and was cracking that elusive jazz nut once and for all devastatingly effective. Ginger Spice could and developing a format which could serve perhaps have used more space for Ron Miles's him well with a number of frontline haunting theme to breathe, and as soon as it instruments. was over Baker's croaking voice announced an impromptu break so that he could "go to the Fred Grand - Jazz Journal 2 july 2012 khazi" – the spirit of rock & roll indeed.

By rights, a lifetime of booze, drugs, one evening but the spark and energy of fights, car crashes and wild women African percussionist Abass Dodoo was crucial. should have left Ginger Baker a wreck, but apparently not so. The Lewisham- “He’s from a famous Ghanaian drum family, born drum icon’s once-red hair is and they’re the guv’nors,”croaked Baker. receding and grey but he can still beat out jazz and afro-rhythms with a Mixing jazz by Monk, Rollins and Wayne semblance of the old power. Shorter with blues for an old friend [Cyril

Davies] and tribal themes from and No one could expect him to thrash the drumkit Nigeria, he did a decent night’s work. Not bad as violently as he once did with Blues for the man once voted Least Likely to Survive Incorporated, Cream, Blind Faith, Air Force and the Sixties. - Fela Kuti, yet he performed two 90-minute sets with a pianoless, guitarless quartet that Jack Massarik - London Evening Standard 30 left him nowhere to hide. april 2012 Seldom can tenorist Pee Wee Ellis and Alec Dankworth have taken so many solos in

Friday at Brecon Jazz Festival, 10/08/2012 Reviewed by Ian Mann

Jazz Confusion brings together Baker’s jazz and African leanings in a quartet featuring himself on kit drums and the Ghanian born Abass Dodoo on percussion. Veteran jazz/funk saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis (of James Brown fame) is on tenor with the hugely versatile bassist Alec Dankworth rounding out the group. The new band had debuted with a sold out performance at Ronnie Scott’s and a successful appearance at Glasgow Jazz Festival. Tonight they produced a value for money performance lasting for an hour and half featuring a mix of jazz and bop standards plus originals by Baker, Ellis and Ron Miles. Unsurprisingly the music was hugely rhythmic with Dankworth adding a tremendous drive to complement the work of the twin drummers. As the sole real melody instrument a lot of responsibility rested on Ellis’ burly shoulders and he rose to the challenge magnificently.

The quartet began with an arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s classic “Footprints” with Ellis taking the first solo, his tone hard edged, swinging and authoritative. Dankworth followed on deeply resonant and the tune climaxed with something of a drum battle between Baker and Dodoo. Many of the tunes followed the same pattern, a format that could soon have become boring but was saved from this fate by the musical and rhythmic inventiveness and sophistication of Dankworth, one of the most imaginative bass soloists around. The percussion duels between Baker and Dodoo actually gained in intensity as the set developed and despite the apparent restrictions of a chordless instrumental line up the quartet held the attention of the audience throughout, gradually building up a considerable head of steam in the process.

Ellis’ punchy, accessible “Twelve Or More Blues” proved to be a big crowd favourite building from a solo tenor sax intro through solos by Ellis and Dankworth to a stirring series of sax and drum exchanges. Ellis’ hard hitting, good humoured amalgam of jazz and blues was followed by Charlie Haden’s “Ginger Blues”, specifically written for Baker and here featuring further fine soloing from Ellis and Dankworth.

First heard on the “Coward Of The County” album Baker’s tribute to his former mentor Cyril Davies mixed blues forms with African rhythms, a reminder of the close links between traditional African music and the mutated form that emerged in America as the blues. An arrangement of Charlie Parker’s “Groovin’ High” represented Ginger’s acknowledgement to the pioneers of . Baker’s unaccompanied drums introduced Ron Miles’ tune “Ginger Spice” which the composer swears pre- dates the Spice Girls although some critics have been less than convinced. In any event it’s a great tune here given extra piquancy by Dankworth switching to electric bass to lay down a big, fat groove subsequently soared over by Ellis’ Middle Eastern inflected tenor. Dankworth later took a type solo above a double percussive barrage. Thrilling stuff.

Next Baker tossed a Thelonious Monk tune into the mix that I couldn’t quite put my finger on (I think it may have been “Bemsha Swing”). This was notable for Baker’s brilliant work and another Dankworth electric bass solo, this time similar in execution to the style of ’s Colin Hodgkinson.

The next piece was written by Baker and named after a town in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco but which I won’t attempt at trying to spell here. Baker, who lived a notoriously wild life back in the 60’s ran his car off

the road somewhere near here but miraculously lived to tell the tale. The music itself had a distinct North African influence with solos by Ellis on tenor and Dankworth on electric bass above the exotic rhythms laid down by Baker and Dodoo. The percussionist is an extrovert performer with a great sense of fun and he was heard to good effect here.

Baker’s “Oi!” began boppishly but deployed a catchy hook to encourage an enjoyable element of audience participation (we were required to shout “Oi!” periodically, great fun). The set closed with an imaginative arrangement of Sonny Rollins’ classic jazz calypso “St. Thomas” with Ellis’ tenor whinnying impatiently and Dankworth laying down a powerful underpinning bass groove. But the fireworks came with the most exciting percussion feature of the night, beginning with a solo from the exuberant Dodoo and developing into a full on battle with Baker as Dodoo made stunning use of a set of suspended small . A thrilling end to a surprisingly enjoyable .

Ginger Baker: 'I was listening to the radio when they announced my death'

No other band got close to Cream – or ever will. I played the drums, Eric [Clapton] was the best guitarist of all time and our sets [featuring hits such as ""] were never the same two nights running; it was magic. Unfortunately it didn't last [the band broke up in 1968] but the reunion at the [in 2005] was amazing; it felt like we'd not seen one another for a few weeks, not 35 years!

Every drummer has to have a few marbles missing. While most musicians just get their horn out and play, as a drummer you've got huge amounts of equipment to set up and break into bits every night, which is unsettling.

I've got to know and play with all my heroes, such as [American jazz percussionist] , and become good friends with them. Have I received the recognition I deserve? No, but that's the way of the I haven't drunk for 20 years. I stopped after I joined world: I just carry on. the Colorado Fire Department, as a first responder dealing with road accidents – the vast majority caused I got heavily messed up with heroin. Then in 1964 I by young drunken idiots. decided I would stop. It took me another 17 years of fighting; of getting off and going back on it. You can't My arthritis stops me doing a lot, but the amazing say you've kicked it until you've been clean for two thing is that it doesn't affect my ability to play drums, years, as once you get out of the physical withdrawal, which is a joy and I'm playing as well as ever. But the mental one stays with you for ever. afterwards I'm in incredible pain, because of my spine, and I have to lie down. Then I have nightmares that I was listening to the radio when they announced my some day I'll wake up and won't be able to play any death. The announcer said it was from a heroin more; it's my biggest fear. overdose. I also got put in the "Playboy Dead Band" in 1972, along with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, which I don't feel bad about breaking Jay Bulger's was funny. nose [Baker assaulted the film-maker with his cane during the making of last year's rock documentary, My life is a constant fiasco. I've no idea why, it's just Beware of Mr Baker.] Actually, I felt good about it as bad luck. [Baker has endured drug addiction, a string I'd had a whole month of being followed around by of failed businesses and myriad bankruptcies, cameras and [Bulger] suggesting I do silly things that I numerous physical injuries and now suffers a wouldn't normally do. degenerative spine condition.] I'm a survivor, unfortunately, and right now I'm in a difficult financial crisis. , Sunday 13th January 2013

Ginger Baker: 'I came off heroin something like 29 times'

Former Cream drummer Ginger Baker talks about his battle with heroin, how he was the original Rolling Stones drummer and being the subject of new documentary Beware of Mr Baker

Edward Helmore, The Observer, Saturday 5 January 2013

In the 60s, when rock musicians bestrode the arthouse cinemas in New York and Los Angeles. world like demigods, no one embodied the It's been hailed as one of the most compelling wildness of the job description more completely rock documentary of recent years, and will be than Peter "Ginger" Baker. A jazz drummer by seen in the UK in the coming months. calling, Baker gained a reputation as the most uncontrollable musician on the scene – a cadaverous, red-headed giant with a reputation for belligerence, a heroin addict like his jazz heroes, a man with strings of girlfriends, a neglected wife, father of the rock drum solo and several children, and driver of a custom-built Jensen FF.

But Baker's natural musicality on the kit was a match for any musician. Jimi Hendrix came to Britain to pay tribute to Cream, comprising Baker, Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce. With the addition of Baker, who has been married four times, says he Steve Winwood and , Baker and Clapton enjoyed the film in parts. "I've only seen it once. formed the short-lived Blind Faith; then came Some of it was okay, some wasn't. But I didn't Baker's own Air Force, before he split for the make it," he says. But he reflects: "It's been an home of the drum, west Africa, and into a musical amazing rollercoaster ride. I've lost everything partnership with the great Fela Kuti. many times. A lot of people would have just given up." His most recent incarnation in the polo But after nearly four decades of wandering, from business collapsed after Baker sued the First Hawaii to Jamaica, to Colorado and South National Bank of South Africa. "I won the case but Africa to set up a polo school, the 73-year-old, it caused my financial ruin." Lewisham-born drummer – and the man once voted the rock star least likely to survive the 60s – Baker may have found a worthy adversary in Jay is back in Britain and living in . A recent tour Bulger, a novice documentary maker who visited of Japan with Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion left him in South Africa under the pretence of being a him hospitalised with a serious respiratory reporter for a decade ago. Baker is infection and he's dogged by painful degenerative filmed clocking Bulger on the nose with his osteoarthiritis that has been aggravated by riding walking cane. "I had no choice," Baker says. "That accidents. "I couldn't breathe. For a moment I was after a month of interviews, and I hate thought I was dying," Baker, who is recuperating, interviews. He was coming up with silly, stupid told the Observer last week. things I didn't want to do, like teaching some African kids how to play." For Bulger, the idea of If it's grim in Kent, across the Atlantic Baker's capturing the drummer in a documentary was fame is again in the ascendant. A new irresistible. "I was advised to stay clear of Ginger," documentary, Beware of Mr Baker, is packing he said recently. "I'd heard he was manic,

dangerous, unapproachable. He sounded like 1960s. "I don't have fond memories of it at all. To Grendel from Beowulf." find you have to do something just to feel normal is not a good road. I got involved in 1960 when Old bandmates, such as Jack Bruce – whom Baker people were getting more than they were using physically attacked, precipitating the breakup of on prescription and selling it. It was called a 'jack', Cream – and Clapton contribute to the one sixth of a gram of heroin in one tiny white documentary. Asked if contemporaries such as pill." While others were dabbling – "Clapton was or ever measured up to heading in that direction, but Eric's problem was Baker, Clapton is emphatic: "No. No. No. Different alcohol, not heroin" – Baker was deep in the league. Completely." throes of addiction.

Instead, Baker sought the recognition of heroes "Every time I went to Africa I got off," he recalls. such as , Max Roach, and "You have to get a good two years clear, and . Not Bonham or Moon? "Don't make those two years are the most difficult. You reach me laugh," he says. "If it doesn't swing, it doesn't a point where you can say 'no'. Then you say 'no' swing. There's lots of drummers with lots of again. The third time a little thing goes off in your technique. It doesn't matter how many beats you brain, 'I wish I'd said yes.' Then on the fourth time play, it's where you play them, and a lot of it is you just say 'yes' and you're back on it again. I what you don't play." So what would have came off something like 29 times." It wasn't until happened if Cream had stayed together? 1981, when he moved to Italy, that Baker kicked the drug for good. "That's when I got clear of it "Cream only lasted as long as it did because it was all. I moved to a little village in the middle of successful," Baker says. "I was lucky to be part of nowhere, where nobody spoke English. I got into a movement in which I was one of the major olive farming. It was very rewarding, very hard players." work but very good therapy."

"If truth be known," he continues, "I was the Perhaps it would have been easier to go to Stones' first drummer. We used to do the interval rehab? "No, no, no, no! There's only one person for with , who was like who can help an addict and that's an addict Korner's protege, and . I got on very himself. The whole rehab thing is just a bloody well with Brian, so we formed a band. Then con to make money and take advantage. The Charlie [Watts] left Alexis Korner so I could join, whole thing is nonsense." Baker has lost some of and I got Charlie into the Stones. But it was Brian his physical power to age and infirmity, but he who set the Stones on its path." says: "With all my disabilities it's a miracle I can play at all, and I'm playing as well as ever. If I'm But Baker was never destined to stay in one enjoying the music, that overrides everything. The place, or one band, for long. In retrospect, the pain goes away. But when I stop after a gig, foreign adventuring was largely a result of the having played an hour and a half, I'm thoroughly heroin addiction he'd acquired as a jazz drummer exhausted. in the London clubs of the late 1950s and early

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