Duck Baker has long been widely regarded as one of the foremost practitioners of the fingerpicking style of guitar, but what makes him one of my favorite fingerpickers is his devotion to bringing life to wildly divergent but commonly neglected styles, and able to breathe life into all of them with merely your basic, acoustic six-string guitar. Baker plays everything from Scottish fiddle tunes and Irish jigs, to American Dixieland and far-out free jazz, or as The Village Voice puts it, “he can go from the Mississippi Delta to the rings of Saturn.”
Baker’s latest offering unquestionably resides nearer the rings of Saturn than Clarksdale, Mississippi. Confabulations is an odds ‘n’ ends collections of demos, club dates and private recordings stretching back to 1994, with Baker in almost exclusively duo or trio settings with a revolving set of almost exclusively British musicians. The plot line of collecting personal recordings made over many years with talented, like-minded friends is pretty much the same as it was for Ducks Palace (2009), only there are more partners in crime this time and thus, more diversity. While everyone involved here are excellent musicians, you could reasonably expect that this collection would be incoherent but it’s far from that. Baker and his ability to instantly adapt to the even the most unpredictable of musicians is the glue that holds it all together.
“Imp Romp 2” is an intimate one-on-one with alto sax player Michael Moore and as the title makes clear, these guys are making it up as they go along. That’s how you know the incredible depth of the telepathy between the two, not just in note choice, but a simpatico in the attitude that they bring.
Dresser plays an outer-reaches reading of “Shenandoah” on his bowed bass to start, but Baker anchors that lovely strain, eventually reeling Dresser into his orbit. The affinity between Baker and Dresser is again explored on “Pope Slark” and this time it feels even more intuitive.
“Indie Pen Dance” is a precious recording with a fingerpicking guitar icon paired with free jazz guitar legend Derek Bailey. The ideas just spill out from the two, strong musical personalities working together instead of against each other in an astonishing display of highly connective technique, instincts and gumption.
Roswell Rudd had been one of Baker’s most fruitful partnerships and to hear Rudd’s brash trombone contending with Baker on “East River Delta Blues” is a treat that never gets old. On “Signing Off,” the always randy Rudd engages in some playful pastiche as Baker keeps things firmly grounded.
“Ode To Jo” is not experimental, it’s swing, and Baker, Alex Ward (clarinet) and Joe Williamson (bass) swing with a contagious bounce. “Tourbillion Air” is the only quartet setting, with Ward, John Edwards on bass and Steve Noble on drums, and also the most recent recording, from only 2017. Together they create a sonic rainstorm with the delicate cadence of a symphony.
A conversation between Baker and pianist Steve Beresford frames “Duo For 225 Strings.” As Baker states in his liner notes, it’s not easy to improvise his guitar with a piano, but he feels comfortable doing so with Beresford, and it shows. John Butcher’s portentous tenor saxophone sets the hushed tone for “The Missing Chandler,” while Baker’s precise fingerpicking serves as the perfect foil.
Unlike a lot of Duck Baker albums, Confabulations wasn’t constructed around a certain topic or theme, it’s just Duck Baker having fun with a few of his musician friends. The very notion that these recordings weren’t made with a mind toward releasing them to the public might be the very reason why this collection makes a great entry point for the avant-garde side of Baker. You hear him — and his colleagues — playing mostly for themselves and the art of improvisation.
Confabulations will drop on June 25, 2021 from ESP-Disk. Get it from Bandcamp.
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