{"id":2447702,"date":"2019-08-19T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T14:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=872460"},"modified":"2019-08-19T08:00:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T14:00:29","slug":"flashback-ginger-baker-returns-to-his-jazz-roots-with-bill-frisell-charlie-haden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/flashback-ginger-baker-returns-to-his-jazz-roots-with-bill-frisell-charlie-haden\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Ginger Baker Returns to His Jazz Roots With Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s hard to dispute Ginger Baker<\/a>\u2019s status as a rock icon. Unless you\u2019re Ginger Baker, that is. \u201cOh for god\u2019s sake, I\u2019ve never played rock,\u201d the drummer, who turns 80 today, said testily during a 2013 interview<\/a>. \u201cCream<\/a> was two jazz<\/a> players and a blues guitarist playing improvised music. We never played the same thing two nights running. \u2026 It was jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Baker\u2019s history with jazz dates back to the mid-Fifties, when he began playing in British Dixieland-revival groups and absorbing the influence of American bebop masters like Charlier Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach (who eventually became a \u201cgreat friend\u201d<\/a>). Later, he studied with U.K. jazz drumming great Phil Seaman and played heavily jazz-tinged R&B with the Graham Bond Organisation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until around 40 years later \u2014 long after he\u2019d revolutionized rock with Cream, collaborated with everyone from Fela Kuti<\/a> to Public Image Ltd.<\/a>, and squared off both verbally and musically<\/a> with legendary jazz drummer Elvin Jones \u2014 that Baker formed his own full-on jazz band. Joining him in the group were two master improvisers: Bill Frisell<\/a>, a highly influential guitarist known for his rootsy, genre-blurring style, and Charlie Haden, a brilliant bassist also steeped in Americana, who worked with everyone from Ornette Coleman to Pat Metheny during his five-decade-plus career. Above you can see the trio playing \u201cI Lu Kron,\u201d a gorgeously moody Baker original from their excellent 1994 debut, Going Back Home.<\/em> Baker\u2019s subtle swing feel suits the piece perfectly and gives Frisell plenty of room to stretch out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had a style \u2014 I play to what I hear, so whoever I\u2019m playing with, what they play has a great influence on what I play, because I listen to what people are playing,\u201d Baker said of his drumming philosophy on a 2013 episode of The Jazz Show With Jamie Cullum<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reviewing Going Back Home<\/em> in Rolling Stone,<\/em> Steve Futterman wrote that \u201cMore than a quarter century after Cream called it a day, Baker has delivered his masterwork.\u201d The drummer would release one more album with Frisell and Haden, 1996\u2019s Falling Off the Roof,<\/em> followed by another jazz date, 1999\u2019s Coward of the County,<\/em> with a different, Denver-based lineup. His most recent studio album, 2014\u2019s Why?<\/em>, found him leading a small jazz combo featuring saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, bassist Alec Dankworth, and Ghanaian percussionist Abass Dodoo, and playing in a loose, unhurried style all his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime moves differently with Ginger,\u201d Frisell once told Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> \u201cYou could find 100 drummers to play the same tune, and Ginger would find something different to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to dispute Ginger Baker\u2019s status as a rock icon. Unless you\u2019re Ginger Baker, that is. \u201cOh for god\u2019s sake, I\u2019ve never played rock,\u201d the drummer, who turns 80 today, said testily during a 2013 interview. \u201cCream was two jazz players and a blues guitarist playing improvised music. We never played the same thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 10:59:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}