Jazz virtuoso David Baker returns to Bear's Place

Professor David Baker will take the stage once again at 5:30 p.m. today at Bear's Place, 1316 E. Third St, at the Jazz Fables concert series.\nBaker will be celebrating the 11th anniversary of the Jazz Fables series, which has played at Bear's almost every week since its conception in September 1989.\nBut Baker's career dates back much further than that. \nBorn in Indianapolis in 1931, Baker loved music from an early age. He attended Indianapolis' Crispus Attucks High School, where he met J.J. Johnson, Oscar Robertson and renowned jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery.\n"(Music) was pervasive," he said. "It was part of everything I did. I can't remember a time when music wasn't an all-encompassing part of who I am."\nBy 1954, Baker had a Master's in Music Education from IU. In 1956, he took his first job as a music teacher, and, in 1960, he toured Europe with the legendary Quincy Jones. The band travelled by plane, train and automobile, playing "one-nighters" all across Europe. \nBaker said the band had a "kitty" ' a pool of money used to throw a party at the end of the tour. Whenever one of the band members showed up late, drunk or broke the dress code, Quincy and the band held a mock trial and fined him. The money was put into the kitty, and at the end of the tour it was used to fund the party. Baker was never fined. "I was Goody Two-shoes," he said.\nIn the early 1960s, Baker recorded with the avant-garde George Russell Sextet. Russell attended one of Baker's concerts in Indianapolis and invited Baker and several of his band members to New York to record with him. The resulting recordings, including "The George Russell Sextet at the Five Spot" and "Jazz in the Space Age," are still sought after and will be re-released on compact disc this fall.\nAlthough he was a performer, Baker's foremost ambition was to teach. In 1966, he was hired by IU to be a professor of jazz.\n"I came with the specific charge to build an accredited jazz program," Baker said. "One that offered a degree."\nIn 1968, he succeeded, and IU was one of the first accredited universities to offer a bachelor's degree in music and jazz studies. In 1978, a master's degree in jazz studies was created. Now, U.S. News and World Report ranks Baker's jazz program as fourth in the country, and, Baker said, there are currently "blueprints on the table for a doctorate."\nAssistant Professor of Music Thomas Walsh, like all IU jazz faculty, is a graduate of Baker's program. He's also playing tenor sax with Baker and Jazz Fables tonight.\n"David has been a pioneer in the field of jazz education," Walsh said. "He established a model for what a jazz department should be. Today, it's rare that you find a school that does not have a jazz department. It is seen as an essential component as a department of music or a school of music. It's his contribution, in terms of the books that he's written and the teaching he's done, not only at Indiana University, but around the world."\nWalsh met Baker in 1982 at the Jamey Aebersold summer jazz workshop in Louisville Ky., where Baker is a faculty member. The next year, Walsh joined Baker's jazz combo and then came to school at IU.\n"(Baker) was a strong draw here," Walsh said. "He's an authority on the music of jazz; and what is extraordinary about David Baker is his knowledge of the music covers virtually all aspects of the music, from history to improvisation, composing and arranging. It's unusual to find somebody with the breadth of knowledge that he possesses."\nJazz Fables band leader and trumpeter David Miller is another musician with close ties to Baker. Although Jazz Fables has played since 1977, it's regular gig at Bear's Place began 11 years ago, featuring David Baker and the band playing a tribute to Miles Davis.\n"The first guest of every semester is David Baker," Miller said. "Without David Baker, Jazz Fables would never have existed. I came here in 1966. Since that time, I've had the opportunity to take some classes with him and to play with him. Many of the players at Bear's Place and featured guests went to IU and have studied with him. It's always one of the most exciting concerts of the year."\nTonight's Jazz Fables 11th Anniversary Concert will feature Baker's composition "Steppin' Out" and his arrangements of compositions by Cole Porter and Sonny Rollins. The concert, which is smoke-free, will cost $6 at the door and will play from 5:30-8 p.m.