Transcript of conversation with David Baker
David Baker: One thing that I've found, that
anywhere I go on earth, where there is music, more often than not, the
music that we call jazz, the music that came out of America, is a music
which is like the lingua franca of music to the rest of the world. I
can't imagine a world without jazz, and the fact that it's a living,
functioning, exciting organism.
Jo Reed: That was NEA Jazz Master David Baker. Welcome to Art Works,
the program that goes behind the scenes with some of the nation's great
artists to explore how art works. I'm your host, Josephine Reed. Born
In Bloomington, Indiana in 1931, David Baker has pretty much done it all
in the world of jazz: he plays the trombone and the cello, composed
more than 2,000 pieces of music including symphonic works as well as
jazz. He led a big band in the late 50s/early 60s and is now conductor
and artistic director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.
He’s Chair of the Jazz Studies Department at Indiana University's
Jacobs School of Music, and he’s written 70 books. He’s received
many honor, most particularly he was named an NEA Jazz Master in the
year 2000. I spoke to David Baker recently and began by asking him what
drew him to jazz.
David Baker: In my particular case, growing up
in segregated America, because where I went to high school, it's a high
school that was built in 1927 called Crispus Attucks High School, and it
was built because it was the first of the segregated schools in
Indiana. And so the music I heard on the radio in the black community
was music of Louis Jordan, of Charlie Parker, of Dizzy Gillespie. So I
was really drawn to that, and really to all music in fact, but that
music was the music that I had access to and the music that I had a
realistic chance of being a part of, because basically at that time, the
symphony orchestras were not as open as they are now, and even there,
it's still somewhat limited. And I certainly wasn't going to be writing
opera. It was the music which was available to me. When I listened to
the radio, listened to my parents talk, that's the music they were
playing, that's the music they listened to. And I still believe that
it's axiomatic that people love the music that they fall in love to.
Jo Reed: And you were born in 1931, so when you were at Crispus Attucks, it was kind of the mid '40s then.
David Baker: Yes. I graduated in 1949 from high
school, and at that time, Indiana, particularly Indianapolis, had become
a focal point for the rest of the country, as far as jazz goes. It gave
us Wes Montgomery, JJ Johnson, Freddie Hubbard, Monk Montgomery, and it
goes on and on.
Jo Reed: Well you mention JJ Johnson. He was one of
the first trombonists to really play bebop and he wasn’t just from
Bloomington, he went to the same high school as you, didn’t he?
David Baker: He sure did. Graduated in 1942, and
he was my idol, because I chose to be a trombone player, and I can't
tell you how many days I would go to school and go down the hall where
they had the pictures of the people who graduated in 1942 and look at
JJ, anticipating a time when hopefully I would meet him. And as it
turned out, we did meet and he became my teacher, and a friend and a
mentor. That story can be replicated a whole bunch of times with people
in Indianapolis, who represented, I guess, the icons.
Jo Reed: You met first JJ Johnson at the Lenox School of Jazz, is that right?
David Baker: No, I didn't. The fact is, I knew
JJ before, but I knew him in a much more casual setting, because I would
see him, and when he would come to Indianapolis, I would just go up and
remind him that I too come from Indianapolis, and he would ask my name
again. And when I got to Lenox School of Jazz, JJ was my trombone
teacher. And he would always say, "I don’t do this for a living. I
don't know how to teach, so here's what I'll give you." And it always
was wonderful wisdom. And sometimes you'll have knowledge and more
knowledge and none of it comes out finally as wisdom. But with JJ it
was. He knew that he was not specifically a teacher, but all of the
things that he did were the things he learned on the street, and he was
able then to convey to us by simply telling us how he did it and why he
did it, and what makes it go.
Jo Reed: The Lenox School of Jazz really was
something. I mean it had such a simple premise: you get the world's
greatest jazz musicians to teach jazz to promising young musicians. And
even though it was open for such a short time, I think maybe three
years, it really left a legacy.
David Baker: I can't think of anything that's
more important to jazz education than the Lenox School of Jazz. I'll
tell you why, it became the model, the paradigm for almost all the
programs. And people really don't know this, which I find disturbing
sometimes, and try to do what I can to help people understand, but with
John Lewis and Gunther Schuller and you had people who actually had
teaching experience in a university or in a high school. But you had
people who were street cred, people like the Modern Jazz Quartet, the
people like Sonny Rollins. And so you had this wonderful, wonderful, as
Quincy Jones liked to call it “gumbo.†And I thought it's a
beautiful way to say that what happened there is the reason why jazz
classes exist at most of the universities, whether we're talking about
Indiana University or North Texas, or even Berkeley.
Jo Reed: I like gumbo, bringing a little bit of New Orleans up to the Berkshires.
David Baker: And what beautiful gumbo it is and was.
Jo Reed: David, you studied with George Russell who
wrote the first theoretical contribution to come from jazz. He was very
influential in your career, wasn’t he?
David Baker: And I think to really the life of
jazz in America, because George, in my estimation, has been the most
important theoretician to come out of this music. He's the only one, I
think, that has found the system, or a set of systems, that have been
verified. We find they work. We know they work. George Russell, over
across those years when he left Cincinnati where he was born, put
together a system that I've been unable to find any holes in it. And
that's hard to say, because even in traditional theory, there are
things, "Don't do this, don't do that. This doesn't work." But with
George, he gave you all the tools, without demanding that you follow his
route or whatever. He gave you the tools: this is it. These are the
possibilities and you'll probably find other possibilities.
Jo Reed: I think we need to say what it is that
Russell did. Very simply put he expanded harmonic language and he moved
passed the major-minor system which dominated Western music for over 300
years. And Russell encouraged his students to continue to push the
music, to explore, didn’t he?
David Baker: Very, very much so. Well, in fact, I
think he insisted. He said that's why the system was devised, why he
came up with it, and he worked on it for many, many years. And in 1959 I
think was the first time I had seen the results of what he had put
together, because he had had tuberculosis. While he was in that
hospital, he pulled all the parts together. Finally, it was presented in
loose-leaf pages when we were at Lenox School of Jazz. A great man,
probably one of the most important voices, because when you talk about
Miles Davis, you talk about Gil Evans, all of them pay homage to him for
the fact that he brought an order to information that they possessed.
Jo Reed: You played in his sextet, didn't you?
David Baker: Yes, I was one of the founding
members of his sextet, and let me tell you, those were the most exciting
years of my life. And it's the reason why really I decided to settle
in, because I could have played and done the other things I do, compose.
But because of George as the model, and in fact, George's having
convinced me, as well as many other people, how important that would be
the transmission of this information. And fortunately, he was able to
bring it to fruition at New England Conservatory where he taught and the
private students that he had, and they are numerous. And every one of
them is a part of the George Russell legacy.
Jo Reed: As you mentioned, you started playing
the trombone, but then you had an accident that affected your playing.
What happened and when did it happen?
David Baker: Well, the accident actually took
place in 1953, a car accident where they didn't expect that I would
live. I was thrown through the front. This was before seatbelts. We had
the accident. Somebody hit the car that I was in and I was thrown 18
feet through the front window. And they had already started funeral
proceedings. And I think that God in my life makes a big, big
difference, because these are the things that led me to other paths,
other routes to take. Had I not had that accident in 1953, I probably
would not have been a teacher. I would probably have composed and just
played. And I found out that every time there was a door that closed
because of some accident, or because somebody who touched me, it opened
another door that ultimately intended and finally worked out to be a
door that I should have gone through. But George Russell saw that, and I
was in his band and Quincy's band when the efforts, when the results of
that accident started to manifest themselves. For instance, in '53, I'd
found out after I started trying to play again that one side of my face
had hypertrophied, while the other side atrophied, and I'd been playing
on this imbalance, and constantly making adjustments. And ultimately,
none of them worked, and another door opened for me, because without
that, I probably would not have become a teacher and become a student of
George Russell's across the years, and able to transmit some of that
information he gave to me and so many other people.
Jo Reed: Well, you turned to the cello, which is a little bit of an unusual choice for a jazz guy.
David Baker: It is indeed, and sometimes I
really go back and say, "Boy, how stupid was I to think at that age that
I could start playing a cello?" It was a strange choice, but it was a
choice that was pretty much governed by my exposure to it by my band
teacher in high school. And he said, "David, these other instruments are
not going to give you the challenge that playing a cello will." And I
could have strangled him when I look back on it now and think, "Boy,
that instrument defies…" I don’t think a cello likes human beings,
but I have had the good fortune to be around people like Janos Starker,
who has been so instrumental in helping me with that instrument. And I
think maybe just because it was an instrument that nobody else at that
time of note was playing, it gave me a challenge, but it gave me a
chance then to find the voice that would be distinctly my own voice,
despite the fact that it was an instrument that is so difficult to play,
that there were times, as I said before, I wanted to strangle Mr.
Brown. Unfortunately, he died before I could get to it.
Jo Reed: Is it fair to say with that switch to the cello, it also opened you up to focus more on composition?
David Baker: You're very prescient. You're
absolutely right. That instrument lent itself to my spending a lot of
time listening to the music of Shostakovich, of Kodaly, of Bela Bartok,
and in the process, I began to understand that I was put on that
instrument for a specific reason, and the reason was that that was the
door that opened me to composition.
Jo Reed: Well, let's talk about you as a composer. You have composed thousands of pieces
David Baker: One thing is that my curiosity is
such that I don't draw lines about anything other than the worth of the
music: is it good or is it bad? So there never was for me this chasm
that exists sometimes between classical and jazz music. So for me, with
the cello now the instrument that I was playing, I started to look and
really examine, and I had a chance to study then with Gunther Schuller
and with John Lewis, as well as with JJ. So all of a sudden, my world
exploded into all of these different things, and all of them closely
related one to the other, and it's just a question of what you intended
to do or what you chose to do with that information. For me, it was to
write, to compose, to make music. And for a long time, I was very, very
fruitful in what I was writing and stuff. And I hit a dry spot about ten
years into that, and I thought, "Boy, I'm running out of ideas
already." And then when I realized, I was starting to be more critical
of what I was writing, so I was not nearly as fruitful, that I was
turning out so many pieces. Now I think it's under control where I
recognized that it has to be given great scrutiny if you're going to
hope that the music would continue to grow.
Jo Reed: Okay, here's a question from someone
who's not a musician, but I just wonder, can you talk about the
difference between playing the music and composing the music?
David Baker: Yes, I can. Composing the music is
different from the improvisation and playing the music, in that
decisions are instant when you're playing. I mean, you don't have a
chance to go back with an eraser. You don't have a chance to go back and
try to say, "Well, maybe this would be better." Of course, we do,
because we have the technology to do that. With jazz, every performance
is absolutely different, even when you intend to play it the same way a
second time or a third time. It's brand new. So I call composition
frozen improvisation.
Jo Reed: But I would imagine when you compose
for jazz you would have to leave room for a certain amount of
improvisation within the performance?
David Baker: Yes. I think that 90 percent of the
time that's probably true, even though Ellington and others would very
often write out the entire piece. And, you know, to have the best of
both worlds, where there are pieces that I write that I don't want
anybody to improvise on because basically, I don’t know that they
would take the path that I intended the piece to go. But there are other
pieces that I write in this third stream that Gunther named in 1958, I
think, that I want them to have time to be able to play. And I have the
best, you know, I know how blessed I am to have the best of both worlds.
Jo Reed: Throughout your career, even when you
were playing, you always kept a focus on education as well. And you went
back to school as you were playing and got a masters degree and then
worked on a doctorate. Why were you doing that?
David Baker: Well, I suppose part of it was just
the fact that I was born with a huge curiosity about how the world
works. And I think I wanted to know, you know, I tell people now that
very often, it's hard for me to go to sleep. I need less sleep than most
people, simply because I'm so afraid something will happen while I'm
asleep, and I want to know all of the things. I know that none of us is
omniscient. Only God is that but everything that there is to know I want
to know. A new book comes out, I read the book. New techniques come
out, even though I'm a dinosaur in terms of technology, it does not
prevent me from being absolutely curious and also seeking out those
people who can make available to me this wealth of information that is
almost out of control, there is so much of it. When I stop and think,
from the time I started to play to now, music has changed in such a way
that it's unbelievable and it looks like every five years or so, it
undergoes another metamorphosis.
Jo Reed: But David, back in the day when you were working on your advanced degrees, it's not like there were jazz programs out there.
David Baker: No, there were no jazz programs
then, of course. Nature abhors a vacuum and so consequently, because we
didn't have those books, we didn't have people teaching it, and people
would come to me-- and I was very fortunate because I had a number of
students who became famous like Freddie Hubbard, like the Brecker
Brothers and whatever, I knew that there was a vacuum. And because there
was a vacuum, it meant that I could write, I could teach, I could do
these things, not only me, but Jerry Coker, Jamey Aebersold, and a host
of others. I just happen to be one of those people in the right place at
the right time.
Jo Reed: What's important when you're putting together a curriculum for jazz?
David Baker: Well, veracity is the first thing,
to make sure that you've done homework, that you really have a sense of
what's true and isn't true. It's almost like you have to go to the
Griots in Africa, the older people, and you say, "Is this what happened
for real?" And of course now, with the oral history projects that happen
like at the Smithsonian, now we can go back and make sure. So I like to
make sure first of all that I'm in possession of as much information as
I can before I write about it. And it was just my good fortune to get
there at a time when there were only a handful of books that dealt with
how to transmit this information to other people. Now there are volumes
that would probably fill a room if you just stacked them. But
fortunately, they're now accessible, because of the iPod and all of
these other things now that make it possible for a student to walk about
with 2,000 tunes in their breast pocket.
Jo Reed: So, it’s safe to say you’ve seen a lot of changes over the 40 years you’ve been teaching.
David Baker: And you know to me, that's the
thing that makes it so exciting and makes it so important, it isn't
frozen. It's, like I said, a living organism. And what seems like
immutable truth, five years later we find out that that really isn't it
at all, or that it has changed so much that you don't even recognize
what it was when it was at that other place. But as a teacher, the thing
that is great for me, and I think other teachers, is that we are the
repositories of that information, so that when I talk about Ellington
and I teach a course on Ellington, I have to talk about the Ellington of
1927, when he opened at the Cotton Club. And that's not anywhere near
the Ellington of 1985 or 1945 or 1955. And to be constantly aware, and
it takes me hours to prepare my classes. And people say, "When you've
been teaching a class for 40 years, why do you spend two hours preparing
it?" The facts don't change. What happens is our perception and how it
affects other people, how it has been modified by new information, is so
important, so that we don't get frozen and think that music stopped at a
particular time. Even if we can say it was the classical period, it was
the romantic period, even our perception of those things changed as we
uncover new information.
Jo Reed: Let me ask you, while we're talking about teaching is there a class that you always look forward to teaching?
David Baker: Yes, basic improvisation because
that, to me, is the root of everything else we do. If you don't have
that, all the other things are pretty much doomed. I can't imagine,
certainly for the layperson, there's a different level. But for jazz
people who are serious, you really have to have improvisation as the
basis for what you do.
Jo Reed: What excites you about your students
now when they're playing. And I mean, just what excites you about the
younger generation of jazz musicians?
David Baker: Is their ability to access and
process information. You know, the thing is, if I was starting now, I
couldn't even get into Indiana University, or into any of the other jazz
schools. Even though we were maybe the crème de la crème of our time,
those things keep changing. And I think the beautiful thing about it is
our ability to adjust and adapt to those changes without destroying
where they came from. And to me, the most exciting thing is the fact,
watching these kids, and I teach at a little place called Ravinia in the
summertime with a camp I have right outside of Chicago. And the level
of these kids now. I don't mean they have the wisdom and knowledge all
the time, but they have physical skills, they have mental skills, that
over the years have grown and grown and grown to the point where now
they pick up an instrument and do things that Charlie Parker and
Coltrane would have been amazed that somebody who's 17 or 18 years old,
or, for that matter, a different gender, a woman, can do all of these
things, and that's exciting for me. That's the reason why I keep
teaching, because when I walk into that classroom and there are 60
people who are hungry to know; it's the reason why, when I give a
lecture, I tell them, "The most important part of my lecture is the
questions that you ask me, because you make me have to re-examine my
positions. Do I still think this way? Is that really the truth? Has it
changed since I started?" And I find that so exciting, being around
young people.
Jo Reed: Okay, and finally, can you just recall
how you found out you were made a Jazz Master? What that was like for
you, what the whole event was like?
David Baker: Yes. And it was so exciting,
because I got the letter and the first thing is incredible. You say, "Oh
me? Really?" And then I can remember, I think it was in 2000, Mary
Mcpartland and Donald Byrd, and the three of us received the NEA award
at that time. And I remember I was probably the youngest of the bunch.
But to see the excitement in this cross-generational group, receiving
this from the United States government with the big letter from the
President and the whole thing. Nothing can adequately describe how
exciting it is, not just for me, but I'm looking at these hardcore
musicians, Herbie Hancock, a musician like the late Miles Davis, and
they have that same excitement. You know, I don't know anything that we
do that really equals that as far as how it affects our lives. And to
me, when I go, I feel so proud of my country that in fact we have taken
the time to invest money, resources, to make sure that the rest of the
world knows how we feel about this music.
Jo Reed: David Baker, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
David Baker: Jo, thank you.
Jo Reed: And I'll see you at Jazz Masters.
David Baker: I'll see you then.
Jo Reed: That was NEA Jazz Master David Baker, talking about his career in music.You’ve been listening to Art Works, produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. The music is “To Dizzy with Love†and “Some Links for Brother Tedâ€
Composed by David Baker, and performed by the Buselli/Wallarab Jazz Orchestra They’re from the CD titled, Basically Baker.
The Arts Work podcast is posted every Thursday at
www.arts.gov. Next week, the focus is opera. I speak with legendary
composer, Carlisle Floyd. To find out how art works in communities
across the country keep checking the Art Works blog, or follow us @NEArts on Twitter. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.
Music up, hot.
NANCY WILSON 
NANCY WILSON 
