Ginger Baker Legendary Cream drummer dies at 80

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There are many scoops and superlatives in the career of Ginger Baker, the drummer and bandleader who died Sunday morning at the age of 80. His death was announced by his family on social media; they had said on September 25 that he was "seriously ill" without giving details.

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The wild-eyed son of a bricklayer from South London, Baker was the engine room of the first and still most respected rock trio, Cream. He played an equally important role in shaping the more refined work of one of the first supergroups of rock, Blind Faith.

In the 1970s, Baker led bands that linked the flamboyant intensity of rock to the complicated polyrhythms or jazz and jazz-rock fusion. He was the first rock-era timekeeper to look for the nuances of African drumming and to become fluid - famously collaborating with the Nigerian Afrobeat, Fela Kuti pioneered in performances recorded on a milestone in 1971 live album.

Born in South East London on August 19, 1939, Baker earned the admiration of his colleagues; Cream employee Eric Clapton described him as a "fully-formed musician." He also had an ego that matches his performance: his memoir titled Hellraiser: The Autobiography of the World's Greatest Drummer. Police drummer Stewart Copeland, one of the many rockers who regard Baker as a primary inspiration, told an interviewer: "He personally is what drums are all about."

But as was made clear in the non-flattering 2012 documentary Beware of Mr. Baker, the Cream drummer was rude, grumpy and confronting up close. The film opens with the interviewer on the receiving end or a shot in the face of Baker's walking stick; it goes on about the sour relationship between Baker and Cream bass player Jack Bruce and quotes Baker stirring mockery on contemporary like Keith Moon or The Who and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

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At one point in the film, Baker's first wife, Elizabeth Ann Baker, says "If a plane went down and there was one survivor, it would be Ginger...The devil takes care of his own."

Baker's early musical experiences include playing the trumpet and exchanging rhythms at desks at school to make his classmates dance. After being on drums with a traditional jazz band in London, he was invited to participate permanently, despite having had little training. Baker then spent several years on the jazz circuit, where he played with some of the most talented musicians in London. Years later, he explained that he "never considered himself a rock and roller - I was always a jazzer."

In 1962, Baker joined Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated on the recommendation of another legendary percussionist, Charlie Watts. In that group Baker joined Bruce and keyboard player Graham Bond; both Baker and Bruce described the work dynamics as testy and defined by conflict, a taste of things to come with Cream. 

The three left Korner's group a year later and worked as the Graham Bond organization until 1966 when Bruce briefly collaborated with guitarist Eric Clapton as part of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. After hearing that Mayall line-up, Baker then approached Clapton with the idea of ​​a more experimental outfit. Clapton agreed, on one condition: that Bruce plays bass and sings. The cream was born.

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The first single of the trio for manager Robert Stigwood's Reaction label was 'Wrapping Paper', a disposable pop song that would be left behind when the release of Fresh Cream, the band's debut, was released on December 1966. The album is stylistically more varied than the ensuing works of the group - with various jazz-tinted pieces (including a waltz called "Dreaming"), an extensive psychedelic body by the classic "Spoonful" by Muddy Waters that can be considered "proof of concept" for Cream's free form improvisation, and an original, "Toad," which became an epic drum show during live performances.

Cream got off to a fast start, aided by quick word of mouth about the trios of live shows and news about a legendary jam at the Polytechnic in London in October 1966 with the then-unknown guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Cream made his American debut in March 1967, eventually played 71 shows in the United States and recorded his second album, Disraeli Gears, in New York. The album was completed in just three and a half days, just before the musicians' visas expired. The album applied the heavy, strikingly uniform sound of Fresh Cream to predominantly original material, ranging from trippy pop garments ("Strange Brew") to thick, blues-rooted stomps ("Sunshine of Your Love"). The work hit a popular place in pop culture, making Cream both hitmakers and a respected musical force. At the same time, the strange rock band described words like 'visionary'.

But the hostility that defined the relationship between Baker and Bruce years earlier returned as Cream ascended. Clapton has characterized his role as "referee" and cited the constant conflict as the reason that the trio only lasted two years, despite the sale of 15 million albums worldwide during his run. Shortly after a 2005 reunion performance in New York, Bruce described the dynamics of Rolling Stone as a "knife-edge thing" for me and Ginger ... Fortunately, today we co-exist on different continents ... although I thought or to ask him to move. He is still a bit too close. "

On stage and occasionally Baker enjoyed the wildcard, the villain, the instigator. Strangely enough, the same traits served to frighten people that Baker served him face-to-face well on stage, where his catchy, easy-going approach to timekeeping became the catalyst for some of the wildest, long-lasting jamming in rock history.

Baker pushed Clapton to peaks or solo anger he had never visited before - and would not reach again regularly. This was partly due to Baker's considerable technique, his ability to tolerate a complicated rising rhythm on the cymbals while following another contrasting rhythm on a drum set with two bass drums. While other drummers or his generation focused on power, Baker approached the track or timekeeping with extraordinary control, equally finesse. He was a master of polyrhythms.

Baker's ability to guide and shape music - all children or music - is derived from his spirit instinct for drama: he was responsible for many of the unusual sentences, such as the stop-time passage at the beginning of "White Room," which Cream made life exciting. He understood how to 'set up' these ideas to unite the musicians, and also knew exactly the right time to destroy that unity with poor full-spectrum fillings that sent the music to higher speeds.

Baker also had a talent for fueling and then cultivating marathon musical conversations - in many ways his approach has been the model for generations or jam-band musicians. He would start by setting up an easy groove that put soloists such as Clapton and Steve Winwood (his colleague in Blind Faith and the first edition of Ginger Baker's Air Force) in the spotlight. With light jabs and modest drum chatter, Baker would gradually increase the intensity of the music. As soon as things got a lusty rolling boil, his game would get busier and more agitated - sometimes in the live performances of Cream and Air Force, it sounds like Baker is busy in a boxing match with the person taking a solo. Incredibly, even during those group peaks and hectic drum parties of epic duration, he never seemed to lose sight of the pulse.

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Guided by his curiosity about African music, Baker moved to Nigeria in 1971 with the intention of opening a recording studio in Lagos. He knew Fela Kuti during the school days of the African band leader in London and occasionally served as a replacement for drummer Tony Allen in Kuti's group Africa '70. A recent re-release of their live collaboration includes enchanting "drum-off" with Allen, one or more kick-kit top meetings that Baker started (and heavily promoted) during his career; another, with jazz legend Elvin Jones, happened during a performance of the Air Force of 1971 in the Lyceum in London and was documented during the live Do What You Like.

In the 2012 documentary, Baker says he did not intend to enter into a kind of live competition with Jones and other drummers: "What always happens is that if you play with a good guy, you end up playing together."

That is actually the strange magic of Ginger Baker: although he was not necessarily charming or graceful in social environments, he was somehow able to cultivate real interaction and empathy among musicians in live situations. He did this on stages or every conceivable size, for massive Hyde Park crowds and in small, modest jazz clubs. One of his later career highlights is Going Back Home, an instrumental trio from 1994 with guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Charlie Haden. It contains the technical facility that has made Baker a legend, and a little more visceral in addition to the original, travelling spirit he has brought for so many projects. There may be some bickering with his claim 'World's Greatest Drummer', but there is not much to dispute: with Baker in the house, a sensation was always guaranteed.