DUCK BAKER is a highly respected fingerstyle guitarist. His repertoire includes everything jazz guitarists have ever heard, from swing and ragtime to modern masters like Herbie Nichols and free improvisation. Baker’s love for American music extends to more traditional forms such as blues, gospel, Appalachian music, and its Scots Irish ancestry. This catholicism can be compared to Europeans who perform classical music from the Renaissance to modern. Duck was born Richard R. Baker IV on May 9, 1949 in Richmond, Virginia. After spending his teens in blues and rock bands, he became interested in the acoustic music. Baker was greatly influenced by Buck Evans, a local ragtime pianist. Baker was already performing the broad range of material on his first Kicking Mule record, “There’s something for everyone in America”, by the time he arrived in San Francisco in early seventies. Baker developed his solo style and joined a bluegrass band. He also became involved in swing jazz, performing with Bay Area legends like Robin Hodes and Burt Bales. Baker continues to be active in this music as a guitarist Bob Wilson and a fiddler Tony Marcus. Baker also recorded four records for Kicking Mule in the late seventies. Two of them were devoted to jazz, and one was a solo recording of Irish and Scottish music. Baker also started solo touring, travelling throughout North America, Western Europe and Australia. After moving to Europe, he remained there for nine years before returning home to San Francisco in 1986. Baker was also a part of the free music scene in the late seventies. He performed with musicians such as John Zorn and Eugene Chadbourne in New York, Bruce Ackley in San Francisco and Henry Kaiser. In the 1990’s, he was associated with the well-respected Irish fiddler Kieran Fahy and Molly Andrews, a great traditional singer. He is also involved in several duos, including one with Roswell Rudd (trombone master), Mark Dresser (bassist), and Ken Emerson (guitarist). A trio that includes clarinetist Ben Goldberg and violinist Carla Kihlstedt also features Baker. Baker’s solo recordings from 1980 include mainly his own compositions. This is a reflection of the influence of great jazz composers like Randy Weston, Randy Nichols, and Monk. Other guitarists have recorded his pieces, including American and Irish traditionalists as well as modern jazzmen. His most ambitious album, “Spinning Song”, was dedicated to Herbie Nichols’ music. It received rave reviews in Jazz Times and Coda magazines, as well as the New York Times. This record helped Baker establish himself as an important voice in fingerstyle jazz guitar. It was voted by Cadence and Coda as one of the top jazz records 1997, and ranked high in the Cadence readers’ poll. Acoustic Guitar magazine called it “one the greatest guitar records ever recorded” by http://duckbaker.com
