The Basics of David Baker: a Conversation
Posted in Jazz Notes on Aug 28th, 2007
A few weeks ago I interviewed jazz composer, educator, and musician David Baker, who played in George Russell’s
early-1960s progressive-bop group (featured in the Night Lights program When Russell Met Baker). For the past 40 years David has run the jazz studies program at Indiana University while continuing to compose and perform, and he also leads the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. A new CD of his big band compositions performed by the Buselli-Wallarab Orchestra, Basically Baker, garnered four and a half stars in a recent Downbeat review. Here’s Part 1 of the interview, which originally…
In the summer of 1959 a 27-year-old 
