Ginger Baker is a U.K. drummer with a reputation for his arrangements and individualist playing. As a jazz player, he is surpassed by just a few and his drumming has influenced many fellow percussionists. He has played with Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Public Image Ltd., Charlie Haden, Bill Frisell and many, many more.
In Lewisham during the 1940s, the copper knob boy had an interest in cycling and music, taking up the drums when he was 15 years old. He had some teaching from Phil Seaman, a jazz drummer with his own distinctive style. Ginger Baker’s early influences were jazz and blues: Art Blakey, Max Roach and Philly Joe Jones being key amongst others. Jazz has been at the heart of his drumming rhythms since the 1960s and he played with several trad jazz bands, including those of Acker Bilk and Terry Lightfoot. Ginger’s distinctive style made him stand out, and he turned towards the blues scene, working with Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies.
He replaced Charlie Watts in Korner and Davies’ band Blues Incorporated and met bass player Jack Bruce, with whom he was later to found Cream. He and Graham Bond (and later saxophone player Dick Heckstall-Smith) formed the Graham Bond Organization. This was in 1963 and Baker enjoyed a career as a successful jazz drummer. By a series of sometimes tumultuous events, and too many coincidences to mention, Ginger Baker came to meet Eric Clapton and Cream were formed and signed to Reaction Records. Baker’s drumming was integral to their success and his jazz roots showed through at times.
After Cream’s brief but phenomenal peak, other bands followed – including Blind Faith and later Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Energy, the Baker-Gurvitz Army Band and Middle Passage. He also made a free-form album recorded almost entirely on acoustic instruments. A few years ago, he toured with his jazz group, the Ginger Baker Trio, and made a successful comeback to Atlantic Records, the same label that marketed Cream’s U.S. recordings.
As well as jazz, Baker shows rhythmic influence from African origins. He set up a recording studio in Lagos and clearly came to understand the nuances and influences of African music – so much a part of jazz rhythms too, of course. He played with Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti and has been a major part of several musical collaborations.
In 2013 and 2014, he toured with the Ginger Baker’s Jazz Confusion, a quartet with Baker, saxophone player Pee Wee Ellis (James Brown, Van Morrison), bass player Alec Dankworth (Nigel Kennedy, BBC Big Band) and Ghanaian percussionist Abass Dodoo (Cream, Van Morrison).
Because of his individual style and his leadership but also for his percussive musicality, he made drums much more than the beat-setting section of a band they had more or less been so far in pop music – though not in jazz. Ginger made them central and key to a band’s identity. He is rightly recognized as one of the drummers who influenced many others and is possibly the only drum legend more famous for his individual playing than the bands he was part of. He is a member of the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame, into which he was inducted in 2008, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2016. His love of jazz has seen him focus mainly on the genre for the past few years and, as ever, he carves his own path through music.
In February, he will perform a short set at Walthamstow Jazz Festival in London and I was intrigued by this – well, that and the fact he had done some free-form improvised music. So, I decided to ask music legend Ginger Baker a few questions …
SAMMY STEIN: What it was about jazz that attracted you?
GINGER BAKER: I have been playing jazz ever since I started playing. Improvisation also came very naturally to me. I found improvisation very enjoyable and easy.
SAMMY STEIN: Do you enjoy the more intimate setting of a festival and the closer contact with the audience?
GINGER BAKER: As long as there is an audience, it really doesn’t matter. A good audience can really lift a player to great heights – almost like they are playing the musician.
SAMMY STEIN: Can you explain what is so special and different about performing live, close to an audience, rather than playing large arenas or in a studio?
GINGER BAKER: There really is no difference between a large audience and a small one. If they are genuinely enjoying the music, somehow the audience enjoyment gets across to the musician playing. It really doesn’t matter how large that audience is.
SAMMY STEIN: When I covered a gig for the BBC last year, the audience was full of young people who told me they thought of jazz as the alternative music now. Venues like Jazz Re:Freshed in London give a platform to young players, and often veterans play alongside the younger players. Have you noticed the fact there were more young people coming to jazz now?
GINGER BAKER: Yes, there are. It seems there are more young players playing jazz nowadays. There is so much more freedom, thus more enjoyment, with each encouraging others. It is a very healthy situation.
SAMMY STEIN: Explain why people should go and see live music, instead of watching live streams or downloading.
GINGER BAKER: Live events often produce magic moments that never happen before, and add to the excitement.
The Walthamstow Jazz Festival line-up also includes guitar player John Russell, free-jazz pioneer Evan Parker, double-bass player extraordinaire John Edwards, Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Binker Golding of Binker and Moses, and rising stars such as Emma-Jean Thackray, Cykada, Vels Trio, Project Karnak and many more. It takes place at the Walthamstow Assembly Hall set on two stages. It will be covered (by myself) for Jazz Bites Radio and other radio stations. For more information on the event, go to the Walthamstow Jazz Festival website.
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