Kenny Baker (trumpeter)
| Kenny Baker | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Born |
1 March 1921 Withernsea, Yorkshire |
| Died | 7 December 1999 Felpham, West Sussex |
| Occupation(s) | Trumpeter, composer |
| Years active | 1941–1999 |
Kenny Baker (1 March 1921 in Withernsea,East Riding of Yorkshire – 7 December 1999) was a player of jazz trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn, and a composer.
Baker joined a brass band and by the age of 17 and had already become a professional musician. After leaving his home town of Withernsea, in Yorkshire's East Riding, for London, he met and began performing with the already well-known jazz musician George Chisholm. While serving in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Baker was called up to do forces programmes.
Baker was first heard on record in a British public jam session in 1941 and quickly established a strong reputation in London clubs. He was brass band trained and had faultless technical command. The young Baker was lead trumpeter with Ted Heath's post war orchestra with such tours de force as "Bakerloo Non-Stop" recorded for the Decca record label in 1946 and still well remembered with a tenor saxophone solo from "Johnny Gray", the piece becomes an exciting feature for both Baker and drummer Jack Parnell. In the 1950s Kenny led his own group called Baker's Dozen for which he played lead and solos and wrote the library. With this group he performed on the first regular jazz show on British radio, the BBC Light Programme series Let's Settle For Music.
By the 1950s he was regularly performing in studios but his numerous jazz recordings (with a quartet for Parlophone and groups of all kinds for Nixa and others) are considered world-class, a confident replay of Bunny Berigan without the errors and range to spare. So good was Baker that when the Musicians' Union were trying to justify their ban on American players working in Britain, they were able to ask, "While we have Kenny Baker who needs Louis?" In the 1960s and 1970s he was still on call for film and studio work. He often appeared on BBC radio's Sounds of Jazz programme introduced by Peter Clayton in the 1970s with recordings made at the Maida Vale studios in London and broadcast late on Sunday evenings.
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