Beware of Mr. Baker

[Trane]

Mt. Baker is a dormant volcano. Mr. Baker is not dormant.

Mt Baker has the potential to hurt more feelings than Ginger ever did if it blew.

Don't underestimate Ginger's capacity aty being a nuisance to others...

[Zeuhlmate]

The Chuck Norris of the drumkit?

[Watanabe]

I don't much really care what he says about Bonham (whose playing on "Good Times, Bad Times" alone--the first song!--puts him in the pantheon) or Moon--hell, Townshend disses Moon's playing--but Mitchell?! For a guy whose playing was once described, not without cause, as sounding like "kicking a set of luggage down a flight of stairs," Baker's simply not hearing Mitchell. I dug his "luggage-down-a staircase" thing, but he'd have been an anchor around Jimi's neck; Mitch allowed him to soar.

I think baker has just lost the plot and become a total curmudgeon over the years.I've read contemporary interviews where he compliments Mitchell, and accounts of them jamming together and being on good terms back then.I think you're right on the Hendrix thing too, i remember there was a website years ago that had a great extremely in-depth breakdown of MItchell, Baker, Hiseman, Moon and Bonham's drumming styles and it commented on how the others would have been too individualistic in a more narrow stylistic sense for Hendrix, and that Mitchell's loose "everything goes, but done with good fundamentals and chops" playing was the perfect foil for Jimmy.This was something i've remembered since as i agreed with it completely.

i do think some other players of that era like Wyatt, Dunbar, Waller, Bunker and maybe Newman and a few others would have been great with Jimi too, but Mitchell really was a tremendous player that was totally right for him.

[Watanabe]

One of my favourite Baker beats that he did with Cream.Really inventive, hip stuff for what most would have taken in a more standard blues fashion.

Something i always found fascinatiing about Baker as a player was how he was into playing slowly and polyrhythmically when most rock drummers were all about the top-kit, buddy rich influence and flinging fast triplet fills all around the kit.His independence figures and african syncopation were quite unique among rock drummers of the late 60s.I could do without the long ponderous solos, but in an ensemble setting he was often extremely effective with his odd accents and polyrythmic shifts.

As a young drummer when i was getting into all the great drummers of that era, coming from a rudimental snare background and growing up around jazz all my life, i found it quite easy to get to grips with the styles of many of the greats of that era, and replicate their beats.But with Baker it was often extremely difficult to get his parts to sound right at all, such was his unique stylistic approach and altogether more unusual integration of jazz influence with straight-eighth patterns than many other equally great players, who would bring in influences from jazz in a more typical ride\snare comping, with occasional accents on toms + fast triplet fills across the snare and toms style.

i could get pretty close to something like Third rock from the sun, Manic Depression, Tull's stuff from stand up and this was, Paice's early stuff etc without much need for extensive practice of a particular beat or straining of the usual jazz\rock rythmic conception etc...but Baker's patterns, especially the live stuff when jamming over Clapton''s long solo's could be outright confusing to feel.He always seemed to have an ability to slip in an unusual accent, or addition to a beat that would require some tricky co-ordination or even just the act of remembering to go there when it felt so unusual to...and sometimes this drumming was pretty slow and required less top-kit dexterity than other drummers beats i could hear and feel rhythmically a lot easier.

Not a player who has a style for everyone, and someone who will inspire a lot of hate from his comments, but truly a drummer with a unique rhythmic concept and that you could usually tell was him within a few bars.Also one who continued to improve his playing over the years.Even by the mid 70s with Baker Gurvitz he's moved up a few notches technically, and coming up with some even more unusual twists to what on the surface can seem simpler straight eight rock derived patterns.

[bRETT]

Head an advance of the new album with the Jazz Confusion ("Why"), and it's pretty damn good-- All instrumental with great soloing (ex-James Brown/Van Morrison saxman Pee Wee Ellis) and the drumming is right on-form. Nice version of "Aiko Biaye" from the Airforce days (the only familiar tune). He plays Boston on SUnday and I much look forward to it.