The drummer Ginger Baker, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith, has died at the age of eighty. From a New York Times obituary:
Mr. Baker, who got his start in jazz combos and cited the likes of Max Roach and Elvin Jones as influences, bristled when the word “rock” was applied to his playing. “I’m a jazz drummer,” he told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2013. “You have to swing. There are hardly any rock drummers I know who can do that.”Look, here’s Cream.
comments: 2
I always regretted I hadn't heard Cream live. I grew up with drummers. Two of my closest friends in high school were jazz drummers, and my brother was a rock drummer, but I never realized how important a drummer could be. I went to hear Ginger Baker at the City Winery in Chicago a few years ago, and I felt like I had heard Cream. He was a quirky fellow but a consummate musician.
And how. I think that musicians often put their best selves into their music.
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