REFLECTIONS ON MONK

Original liner notes by Duck Baker

DUCK BAKER PLAYS MONK

Original liner notes by Roswell Rudd

A loving explorer of sounds meets a magnificent builder of sounds: There is only one Duck Baker,
there is only one Thelonious Monk. The resulting collaboration produces a masterwork in American classical music, jazz.

The music of Thelonious Monk is pervaded by the composer’s stylistic integrity, originality, and musical personality. It has been a source of inspiration and knowledge for countless musicians and audiences the world over since the 1940s.

This would include Duck Baker, who has been listening for 50 years. His early flirtations with violin and ukulele gave way to a fascination with folk fingerpicking guitar. Early on, Duck started applying fingerstyle techniques to the American
music repertoire he grew up with in Virginia: Blues, bluegrass, country, hymnody, hillbilly, swing, pop, and-yes!-jazz.

Certainly, the music of Thelonious Monk has been a factor throughout Duck’s musical career, especially from the time of his move to San Francisco in the 1970s. Those early musical infatuations and Duck’s endless delving ever since is what you, the listener, encounter in these nine heartfelt and skillfully rendered expositions of Monk’s songs by Baker.

Each of the songs is stated at some point in tempo and in the composer’s form: Melodies, voicings, and phrasings meticulously (and deliciously) transposed from keyboard to fretboard wherever possible. You know, musical personalities have been interpreting the works of other musical personalities since time immemorial, but in this case the process is strikingly special. The possibilities for sonic and dynamic nuance on acoustic guitar, particularly in the hands of a master such as Duck Baker, far outweigh those of the pianoforte, even in the hands of an instantly recognizable touch such as that of Monk: Clear and plangent, yet tender.

So much of the reinterpretation of classics emanating from keyboard are limited by the very nature of the instrument: Fingers on keys transferred mechanically to hammers on strings. Whereas with acoustic guitar, as with all the bowed, rubbed, plucked, etc. chordophones, so much of the playing is about touch: Fingers, fingertips directly fretting or hovering over strings, barely touching strings to produce myriad harmonics and multiphonics. The instrument’s timbral resources are seemingly unlimited. And vis-a-vis the plucking: “I never use picks or even fingernails … I employ rest strokes for single-note lines … classical and Flamenco players call it apoyando,” to quote Maestro Baker.

And here are some of the highlights of his approach as I hear them on this record, starting with:

“Blue Monk”
Monk’s B-flat center has been transposed to a more open, Delta-ish key of E and, typical of that tradition, an introduction of blue-ish melodic fragments à la Monk and Baker is thoughtfully interwoven in free time. (This approach is to be tastefully reencountered in the other eight selections, but always deriving specificall from the sources themselves.) This builds connectedly to a literal statement of “Blue Monk.” in tempo, with the composer’s structure intact; five heartfelt, improvised 12-bar blues choruses in steady time followed by a recapitulation of the head and succinct coda à la Baker.

“Off Minor”
Again, an intro of free but relevant improvising builds inevitably into the primordial/off-minor ring of B-flat against B-natural. This sound takes on new meaning when plaved with acoustic quitar. Then it’s into the composer’s unique multipart composition. Baker’s improvisations in tempo on the song structure are both monophonic (single lines like a horn) and broken lines off the harmonic structure, melodic sounds overlapping and bushing at timbral limits.

“Bemsha Swing”
Starting right off with monophonic free associations in and out of free time; statement of bass line with improvised responses; next, a wonderfully nuanced statement of just the composed melody and bass line together! And, finally, outer and inner voices all together. This is music making from the inside out and a joy in the building and rebuilding.

“Round Midnight”
In relaxed time and with the original compositional “bones” securely in place, Baker’s interpolations take on that much more soulful and masterful a blend. Especially poignant and accessible here is the mastery of harmonics and overtones I spoke of earlier. Duck’s encyclopedic knowledge of the touch and placement of these acoustic phenomena enables him to infuse them organically into this most popular of the composer’s standards. Listening to it this way here, it felt to me as glorious as hearing it for the first time.

“Light Blue”
When it comes to brevity with just the right emotional/ physical balance in a song, this 8-measure treasure takes center stage for me. Tender intro, drawing freely on harmonies & melody, flowing into steady time with statement of theme and complete texture intact. If I didn’t know otherwise, I would conclude that this is Thelonious Monk himself playing “Light Blue” on acoustic guitar. Further improvisations in time on the song form follow … amazing fragmentation but always relating back into the composer’s design. Ingenious ending. Spontaneous composition from the inside out.

“Straight, No Chaser”
A minute or so of inside playfulness. like two different people having simultaneous conversation, and then right into swing time, plucking, glissing, twanging, tone colorizing, all true to the composer’s chromatic grid. “Chattanooga Choo Choo”… what..? But it fits perfectly! Coincidence of chromatic wizardry.

“Jackie-ing”
Slow, pensive figurations, harmonics coaxed out of strings with fingertip precision. We know it’s going … but where? After a minute, there it is: Baker has chosen a delicate, introspective route in contrast to the conventional extrovert. The bold sonorities are here transmuted to sweet and beckoning, and in the process have somehow become even more resonant. Magic of acoustic guitar transmutation. Nothing lost, only gained: A perfect 50/50 collaboration between two masters.

“In Walked Bud”
Loosely based on the 1926 classic, “Blue Skies,” by the great American songwriter Irving Berlin. “Blue Skies” is loaded with formal implications, but in terms of exquisitely terse composition and composition that improvisers can sink their teeth into, the great American jazz composer, Thelonious Monk, narrowed them down to a chromatically descending middle voice with relative drones above (melody) and below (bass). The resulting nucleus is nothing less than a brilliant abstraction into ancient 3-part singing, and that’s just for the A sections. The bridge (B section) is written as a call/response section, which, by its very nature, spans human history.

In his interpretation of this classic, Baker is in touch with all the aforementioned variables. He dives right into “Bud,” establishing swinging tempo and statement of the song, skillfully intersecting all three voices (melody, middle, and bass) so it sounds like a band. The first and second improvised choruses continue in this intricate, broken-chord style; third and fourth improvised choruses it’s suddenly a blazing horn solo, culminating in a quote: “Ol’Man River.” (I’m still laughing.) Recapitulation and out. Simply magnifico!

“Misterioso”
This has got to be one of the most meaningful songs ever composed by anybody, anytime, anywhere, and it’s a 12-bar blues. It sounds and resounds from the primordial technique of hocketing, or chiming of parts-a form of which also enlivens the parameters of “In Walked Bud.” The way that Duck Baker has orchestrated it for his acoustic guitar is most resourceful, taking advantage of” … all natural harmonics … ” (D.B.) Thus, an intro of sensual struck partials and clusters spiraling around the parallel 6ths melody … moderato in 4/4 time with occasional rubato. Then, at the 3-minute mark, a repeated literal statement of the head at a fast clip suddenly intervenes. Hmmmmm … he starts by caressing, intensifying the dynamic until it’s ready for takeoff and away it goes. Not a new approach by any means, but in the hands of a simpatico virtuoso, feels like the first time.

In conclusion: Ranging from moments of profound simplicity to those of bristling complexity, this devotional tribute by Duck Baker to the genius of Thelonious Monk, like most great art, is pervaded finally by an abiding sense of humor. Enjoy.

Kerhonkson, NY, August 2016