# Bill Frisell remembers Ginger Baker: Nobody sounded like that: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/10/13/bill-frisell-remembers-ginger-baker-nobody-sounded-like-that-video/
- Published: 2019-10-13T23:50:40+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**“To me, his gruffness was more of a protective shell,” jazz guitarist says of 
deceased Cream and Ginger Baker Trio co-founder.**

In 1994, Ginger Baker released a jazz trio album that represented a radical but 
welcome departure from the heavy blues rock he had pioneered as a member of Cream.
Yet the record — Going Back Home — was in many ways a return to form.

Baker, the British drummer who died Sunday at the age of 80, grew up playing jazz
and had always considered himself to be a jazz musician at his core, even as he 
came to epitomize the brash freedom of rock & roll. Bassist Charlie Haden (who died
in 2014) and guitarist Bill Frisell, who had long admired Baker’s nimble rhythmic
approach, rounded out the Ginger Baker Trio. Frisell, now 68, spoke with Rolling
Stone about Baker’s inimitable style, his indelible legacy, and his famously gruff
personality.

Fifty years ago, I graduated from high school, and I think that’s the year I went
to see Cream play in Denver. It was an incredibly intense time — I was falling in
love with music pretty hard. Around the same time is when I first heard Jimi Hendrix,
and I heard Miles Davis, and I heard Ginger. All that was happening at once. So [
Ginger’s sound] was deep down in my DNA. Like, nobody sounded like that. It wasn’t
how the drums were tuned or anything, but it was that touch, and the way he placed
the beat; the feel of it was so extraordinary. If you had told me then that someday
I would actually be playing with him, I would never have believed you.

My friend Chip Stern produced [the first Ginger Baker Trio record] and really got
the whole thing together. For years, he had this dream of putting me and Charlie
and Ginger together. I think Charlie had met Ginger briefly, and I didn’t really
know him at all. I had met him in the late Eighties at a jazz festival — someone
pushed us together and he shook my hand. But it was literally a few seconds. So 
it was an arranged marriage.

It was very intense for me. I go to Los Angeles and I walk into the studio. Luckily,
I had played with Charlie, so at least I knew him, and I knew Chip. But it was amazing
walking into the studio. I go in there — I have my guitar — and Ginger is setting
up his drums, and he’s smoking a cigarette, and there’s already a bunch of cigarette
butts all over the floor. He’s just kind of grunting and groaning, setting up the
drums. I’m pretty nervous. I’m like, Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into? So
I just walk up to him; I have to introduce myself. I said, Hi Ginger, I’m Bill. 
I’m the guitar player. And he didn’t say much. Oh, OK, yeah. There was no hugging
or anything like that.

But then we set up and we start playing, and suddenly it was just like three guys
playing, and he just started smiling. It’s just incredible what music does. However
many years ago this was — 25 years, I can’t believe it’s that long — it was just
this instant bonding; an understanding [and] the way music just breaks down any 
kind of barrier. And there was this joy. We were really just playing, picking tunes
like “Straight No Chaser.” And Ginger was so generous. We played his tunes; he played
our tunes. And it just felt real honest in that way.

It wasn’t like I was hanging out with Ginger all the time, but my feeling from him
was — Steve Winwood mentioned how sensitive he was — and to me his gruffness was
more of a protective shell. What I was seeing was this true love of the music, and
you can’t play like that if you’re not sensitive. It’s not about loud or soft; he
was listening and he had a tone. He had his own sound. He was listening like crazy.
There’s a sensitivity; you wouldn’t call him fragile, but sometimes you gotta find
a way to protect that thing, and I think on the surface that’s what people would
see. When I watched that documentary [Beware of Mr. Baker], everybody’s talking 
about, “Oh yea, he did this or he did that or he hit this guy,” but when I saw it,
what I kept seeing was, Wow, check out his love for music. The music was so important
that he was trying to protect it. It means so much to you and it’s hard to describe;
you feel like you’re being invaded. And I just felt that from Ginger.

So I witnessed some gruff stuff, but I never saw him punch anyone out or anything.
And his sense of humor — he was doing these limericks over and over, like [he had
an] endless incredible memory for all that stuff. They were just pouring out of 
him; it was unbelievable. [Later] somebody told me a limerick, and I remember calling
him on the phone and I recited it to him, and it totally flipped him out.

A couple of years ago, I saw a concert of Cream from around the time that I saw 
them when I was in high school. So much stuff was happening at that time, the way
boundaries were being crossed, and things were opening up, and it just struck me—
the chemistry between those three guys, the way they were pushing up against each
other, or trusting each other. I’m just talking about within the music. They would
take these chances and jump way out. Going back and hearing that again, it really
was a gigantic reminder of what that was. There’s a lot of tension and uncertainty—
all these things are happening in the music to allow it to be out on this edge of
where you don’t quite know what’s going to happen next. And then Ginger is like 
a safety net around the whole thing. He’ll push you off the edge and then he’ll 
come and get you just before you’re going to hit the ground. He’ll play something
that will bring it back around.

And I try to always be in that place with my own bands. The most thrilling thing
is, whether you’re with someone you’ve played with a million times or someone you’re
meeting for the first time, you gotta trust each other, and it’s not about a contest
or anything; it’s like you try to let the person you’re with be free and then it’s
everybody’s job to rescue everyone else. So it was so great that it was just the
three of us. The first record, in particular, was kind of a jam session. It was 
like, “Hello, let’s just play.” The music became the conversation; it’s like you
meet somebody and you start talking and you realize you’ve got a whole bunch of 
stuff in common, and you lose yourself. You don’t have to think.

We did a second record. That was more of a challenge. He actually came up to Seattle
to do it. Right before that recording, he fell off his roof. The record is called
Falling off the Roof, and right before he came, he was doing some work on his house,
and he fell off. I can’t believe the stuff that his body went through. He’d have
his teeth in a glass. That was wild. There’s Ginger Baker’s teeth. So he was in 
some pain for the whole recording, and he was also probably taking some medication
for that. It was Charlie again, which was great, and Jerry Hahn played guitar. Bela
Fleck played on it. But it was a little more complicated. There were people coming
in and out, and Ginger was in pain. And everybody had come from very far away to
play in this studio. So it was more difficult.

The last time I saw Ginger, I was playing in Denver, and this is when he was still
living outside Denver and really into polo. [I was playing with] Ron Miles and Rudy
Royston at the Ogden Theater, and Ginger came to that gig to see us. That’s where
he met Ron and Rudy, and those guys ended up playing with him. So Ginger started
up a Colorado band with Ron, and they’d play at this polo place, and Ginger would
say, I’ve gotta go ride my horse or something, and then Rudy would come and play
drums.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ChipBill.jpg?
w=640&ssl=1)

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