IU honors David Baker's 80th birthday with concerts

It can be said that racial segregation in America birthed one of the greatest jazz icons of all time.

David Nathaniel Baker Jr., current distinguished professor of music and chair of the Jazz Studies Department at the IU Jacobs School of Music, is deeply respected globally and through the generations for his contributions to the jazz world.

This weekend, the Jacobs School of Music will hold an 80th birthday celebration for Baker. Although his birthday was Dec. 21, the school said it wanted to honor the jazz legend in a manner that students could participate in.

The energetic octogenarian is credited with more than 2,000 compositions, including jazz, symphonic and chamber works, and has published 65 recordings, 70 books and 400 articles.

Widely seen as one of the ABCs of modern jazz education — “B” is for Baker, while “A” and “C” refer to his renowned collaborators Jamey Aebersold and Jerry Coker, respectively — Baker is also regarded as one of the world’s premier jazz educators.
 
In 1955, after graduating from IU with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education, Baker took up a substitute teaching position at Lincoln University in Missouri — a stint that would mark the beginning of a long journey of accomplished pedagogy.

“I remember in our high school yearbook, where it says ‘name,’ ‘specialty’ and ‘what are your intentions in the future,’” Baker said. “I’d said I wanted to be a music teacher.”

Baker was born in Indianapolis in 1931, where he attended Crispus Attucks High School, which was built in the early 20th century and designated as an institution for African-American students.

Because it was a rule that an all-black school could only hire all-black teachers, there were many overqualified educators teaching at the high-school level.

“I didn’t know of any professional orchestras in the U.S. at that time that had an African-American playing in the orchestra,” Baker said. “Given that lack of an option, I studied church music, learned how to play rock ’n’ roll and rhythm and blues and the other styles that were open to a young African-American who wanted to teach, so I didn’t choose jazz at first — it chose me.”

Baker honed his jazz performance skills in bars and pubs, but it was only upon attending IU in 1950 that he was able to receive formal training in classical music.

Still, the love for jazz had already been deeply embedded in the young student.

“In the schools, it was not considered an important music ... they always thought that jazz was inferior to other music,” Baker said. “We weren’t supposed to play jazz in the practice rooms here. And there was a penalty for doing that. But, being young, full of ideas, I was determined — I did what everyone else did — have jam sessions.”

Baker managed to convince his peers that jazz was as important to society as the music of classical masters like Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

“We were of the notion that jazz was America’s music,” Baker said. “I mean, if we’re talking about music that was born here, it would be music that had come out of slavery, that had come out of Black Prohibition, all those early years when blacks were not allowed to go to the movies, could not get into most schools.”

When Baker first arrived at IU, African-American students were not allowed to live in the dorms use public restrooms or visit hair salons. It was not until former IU chancellor Herman B Wells made a stand that the chokehold began to loosen.

Finally, by the time Baker returned to found and develop the Jazz Studies Department 10 years later in 1964, the doors of segregation had already been largely broken down by revolutionary figures like Martin Luther King Jr.

As he worked to make IU’s music school one of the best in the country, a young man who lived in a small city 20 miles from Baker’s hometown started to play the jazz trumpet.

The man was David Miller, founder of Jazz Fables, a concert series that began in Bloomington in 1977 and featured many jazz studies students and alumni. Notable names include prominent drummer Shawn Pelton and keyboardist Jim  Beard, both of whom will be visiting IU this weekend to hold free jazz clinics.

Baker himself played the cello for regular sets with the band approximately once every school semester since the start of the concert series at Bear’s Place. 

Brought up in a household that was constantly filled with all kinds of music, Miller was exposed from an early age to the jazz publication “Downbeat Magazine,” in which he read about and explored music by jazz greats, including Miles Davis and a certain David Baker.  

Miller arrived at IU the same year Baker succeeded in pushing for jazz studies as a degree-granting program. Despite choosing to pursue a sociology degree, Miller sat in for as many of Baker’s jazz classes as he could.

“Even though I continue to try to learn on my own, I don’t think any of the things I’ve accomplished with Jazz Fables would have come about without what David built with the Jazz Studies Department,” Miller said. “He inspires young musicians to learn at the highest level.”

“He is the epitome of jazz,” said sophomore Tori Miner, who took Baker’s History of Jazz course in the fall 2011 semester.

“He embodies everything that jazz music is,” she said. “Watching him and listening to him talk — his experiences make jazz feel more real than they’ve ever felt for me.”
As the original designer of the IU jazz program, Baker continues to teach courses that he has taught for the past 40 years. Despite possessing a wealth of knowledge and experience regarding topics taught, Baker chooses to keep himself updated by constantly revising class material.

“What I do is teach life experience,” Baker said. “For instance, music doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And so when I teach music, I’m teaching people how the world works. At the same time, there’s music, there are wars, there are pestilences, there are illnesses, there are new inventions, old inventions, cellphones, new things. And what I teach is all of that because I’ve lived all of that. So I teach those things that are part of my life experience.”

This care for the world around him permeates his entire life. Despite his many glittering accomplishments and connections with important people, Baker remains humble. He credits his success and reputation to his professors at IU, including world-famous Menahem Pressler, János Starker and Josef Gingold, who commissioned Baker to write classical music scores while he was still in school.

But most of all, Baker said he owes it all to God.

“Everything I’ve ever needed has been given to me,” said Baker, who sees his talent for performance, composition, writing and pedagogy as gifts from God.

He believes everyone has an “expiration date”: His goal in life, above all the honors and recognition, is to leave the world a better place, with no stone left unturned.

“Everything I’ve gathered as a jazz musician is credited to what I’ve learned from him and people he’s taught,” said Miller, who has arranged a concert with Pelton, Beard, Robert Hurst, Ralph Bowen and Scott Wendholt — all of whom studied under Baker in the 1980s.

“They’re all steeped in the way he’s done things,” Miller said. “David’s an individual that’s so gifted and determined to do what he does. It’s like a diaspora extending from him.”

The celebration

Thursday

WHAT Jim Beard clinic
WHEN 12:15 to 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Recital Hall Stage

WHAT Bob Hurst clinic
WHEN 1:30 to 2:45 p.m.
WHERE Recital Hall Stage

WHAT Performance by Ralph Bowen, Scott Wendholt, Jim Beard, Bob Hurst and Shawn Pelton
WHEN 5:30 to 8 p.m.
WHERE Bear’s Place
MORE INFO Admission is $8 for students and $10 for the general public

Friday

WHAT Lecture by Larry Jacobson, vice president of financial services for Universal Music Group
WHEN 12:20 to 12:50 p.m.
WHERE Music Building Addition, room 454

WHAT Shawn Pelton clinic
WHEN 1 to 2:15 p.m.
WHERE Music Building Addition, room 454

WHAT Jim Beard, Shawn Pelton and Bob Hurst rythym section class
WHEN 2:30 to 4 p.m.
WHERE Auer Hall Green Room

Saturday

WHAT Ralph Bowen clinic
WHEN 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
WHERE Music Building Addition, room 454

WHAT Scott Wendholt clinic
WHEN 1:30 to 2:45 p.m.
WHERE Music Building Addition, room 454

WHAT Panel discussion featuring David Baker, Monika Herzig and the authors of “David Baker: A Legacy in Music”
WHEN 3 to 4:30 p.m.
WHERE: Musical Arts Center lobby

WHAT David Baker’s 80th Birthday Celebration Concert
WHEN 8 to 10:30 p.m.
WHERE Musical Arts Center stage
MORE INFO Tickets are fully distributed, but more tickets will be available for standby the night of the event on a first-come, first-served basis. The concert will also be streamed live by IUMusicLive! at music.indiana.edu

WHAT Reception
WHEN 10:30 p.m.
WHERE Musical Arts Center lobby

WHAT Jam and Hang
WHEN 11:30 p.m.
WHERE Café Django

Sunday

WHAT Shawn Pelton percussion clinic
WHEN 1 p.m.
WHERE Music Building Addition, room 401

WHAT Michael Weiss jazz piano clinic
WHEN 1 p.m.
WHERE  Merrill Hall, room 7A

To share a personal memory or birthday wish with Baker, visit the celebration blog at blogs.music.indiana.edu/bakercelebration