Confabulations

In his five-decade career, finger-style acoustic guitarist Duck Baker has played in lots of styles, from folk (real folk, such as Scottish and Irish fiddle tunes) to blues to jazz, in the latter genre particularly focusing on bebop greats, with whole albums devoted to the music of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols. But he has flashed an avant-garde side as well, and of course ESP-Disk’ was interested in exposing more of the latter work. This album of duos and trios with an all-star roster of players, mostly British, collects recordings ranging from 1994 through 2017.

Tracklist

Total duration: 59:11

Personnel:

Duck Baker – guitar;
Derek Bailey – guitar on “Indie Pen Dance” (2002)
Steve Beresford – piano on “Duo for 225 strings” (2009)
John Butcher – tenor saxophone on “The Missing Chandler” (2009)
Mark Dresser bass on “Shenandoah” and “Pope Slark” (1994)
Michael Moore – alto saxophone on “Imp Romp 2” (2008)
Roswell Rudd – trombone on “East River Delta Blues” and “Signing Off” (2002)
Alex Ward – clarinet and Joe Williamson – bass on “Ode to Jo” (2010)
John Edwards – bass and Steve Noble – drums “Tourbillion Air” (2017)

Notes:

2, 9 – 1994, Mark Dresser’s studio, Brooklyn, Mark Dresser, bass, engineer
4, 10 – January 9, 2002, Tonic, New York, NY, Roswell Rudd, trombone, Ben Young, engineer
3 – July 4, 2002, recorded at the home of Derek Bailey in Hackney, London, Derek Bailey, guitar, engineer
1 – October 10, 2008, Cafe Oto, London, Michael Moore, alto saxophone, Tim Fletcher, engineer
6 – September 18, 2009, Cafe Oto, London, Steve Beresford, piano, Chris Trent, engineer
7 – September 19, 2009, Cafe Oto, London, John Butcher, tenor saxophone, Chris Trent, engineer
5 – September 12, 2010, Glenn Miller, Stockholm, Alex Ward, clarinet, Joe Williamson, bass, Rico Repotente, engineer
8 – March 7, 2017, Vortex, London, Alex Ward, clarinet, John Edwards, bass, Steve Noble, drums, Alex Ward, engineer

I met Mark Dresser when we were both living in Italy in 1984, and we wound up playing a few very humble gigs together around Turin. We reconnected in the early ‘90s when we were both east coast residents, he in New York and I in Northern Virginia, and did a few better gigs in NYC. We also made a demo around that time, and when I came across it years later I thought right away that some of the music should be shared.

Around this same time, I started working on Spinning Song, my record of Herbie Nichols tunes, and I reached out to Roswell Rudd, who was Herbie’s greatest champion, for guidance. Eventually Roswell suggested doing some things together, and I learned more from that association than any other I was ever a part of. A lot of what he wanted to do with me involved an approach that was as much free association as free improvisation, based on quoting from different melodies that related to one or more particular subjects. I don’t have space here to go into everything involved with this, but will note that Roswell almost always seemed to throw a few wrinkles in when we performed that took everything in a direction that rehearsals had not prepared me for. It seemed like a technique to force the performance into the right this very second NOW, and it sure put juice into things!

I never performed in public with Derek Bailey but any time I visited him in Hackney, the first thing he wanted to do was pull out the guitars and have a play. And that was another situation in which I felt like I was being suddenly slapped awake, or trying to jump on a fast-moving train. As Steve Lacy said, “That guy makes me play things I never play in any other situation.” On one of my last visits before his illness made playing problematic, he said, “let’s record it this time”, so we did.