Posted on March 4, 2021
Duck Baker met Mike Cooper at the home of Stefan Grossman in Fulham when both were making records for Stefan’s Kicking Mule label during the late ’70s, and they have remained friends over the years. Their first meeting was memorable because they discovered, to their mutual surprise, that both were involved not only with the folk/blues/ragtime guitar styles that were Kicking Mule’s specialty, but with free improvisation, the avant garde style that had evolved from 1960s free jazz. Duck pulled out a copy of the then-new Eugene Chadbourne LP he played on, Guitar Trios (the side he played on was recently reissued as The Guitar Trio in Calgary, 1977 https://duckbaker.com/discography/duos-and-trios/the-guitar-trio-in-calgary-1977/), and though Cooper and Baker didn’t do any free improvising at Stefan’s house that night, they have had other chances over the years. Finally they decided to record some duos when Duck was visiting in Rome in 2010.
The two old friends sat down in Mike’s kitchen with Spanish guitars and a Zoom H2 mini-recorder, and played the nine improvs heard on Cumino In Mia Cucina. Several years later, Mike asked Mark Westfall if he would be interested in releasing the music on Confront Recordings, and, after a few delays owing to the pandemic and Brexit, the CD is now available for the low price of £10.
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