Duck Baker on nylon
David Kilpatrick
Baker played here last night and didn't touch a steel string. At all. He
played the entire set on a flamenco nylon guitar (didn't ask him the
maker, had an S on the headstock with a sort of snaky trail from the
base of it between the tuners, otherwise totally plain).
Sounded excellent though his retuning from open G to standard, drop D
and a few variants was done by ear and was not perfect, and he played
his encore with a seriously flat bass string making him wince every time
he hit it, but he didn't stop to retune.
Some of his self-penned or arranged pieces use such nonfluid hand
position changes that he lost the flow himself, and I felt that was
taking insistence on best harmony too far; it destroyed the feel of
moving parts, and a few times, he stalled or got some dead notes due to
the awkwardness of physically making these shapes for a single passing
note. I've noticed this in his tab, but it's seven years since I last
heard him and I have learned a lot since then. What he played would have
sounded great to me then, but now I much more aware of the slightest
problem facing a player during performance, and Duck gave himself more
than he deserved - all in the interests of sticking rigidly to an
arrangement conceived regardless of dexterity.
In contrast, when he let rip into Texas waltzes and blues standards,
ragtime, etc, on pieces which were difficult but had been written by
others, he was amazingly fluid and faultless - he also used rest stroke
and free stroke techniques very effectively, and said he could never do
the same with steel string. He played the rest strokes very much in the
manner of bass guitarists and said 'don't do as I do, do as I say...'
about that aspect of his personal style.
He announced one piece as 'Sean O'Dwyer of the Glen' but if it was the
'John o'Dwyer of the Glen' which I know, it was slowed down and altered
to the point where I could not recognise it. It sounded awesome but
nothing like the O'Neill tune, perhaps because it was taken about ten
times slower than written, with unusual harmonies and ornaments.
David
Steven Bornfeld
Thanks for this. I've never heard Duck Baker live, and I only have his
"the Art of Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar" recording. I find it frankly
difficult to listen to. Besides being inclined to discard albums with
"the Art of" in the title, it leaves me kind of cold. It's like the
story about the bumblebee--it's not so much how well it flies, it's that
it can fly at all. What he does is, of course, pretty amazing, but I'd
love to hear him play something where he can achieve some lyricism.
Steve
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Ashby
news:c9cem2$e0b$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
Duck's main guitar is a Fleta flamenco, but he didn't have it with him when
I saw him a few months ago. He was playing another flamenco instead. I
forgot to ask him what it was. I think he's reluctant to travel by air with
the Fleta. He's right about doing as he says and not as he does. His
technique is somewhat unorthodox. He plants his pinkie on the soundboard,
for example, in the original Travis picking style. He also anchors his thumb
on a bass string, then pronates his hand and punches the trebles using rest
stroke, which results in a powerful sound. Duck has refined his mechanics
over the years, and his technique works fine for him. Nylon suits him well
because it brings out the nuances in his playing.
He had no problems with tuning or flow when I saw him. No stalls, and I
don't remember him hitting any clams. Some pieces are nonfluid by design
(legato is not a feature of Delta blues). He played Dixieland, Joplin,
fiddle tunes, and blues. He also played a series of African pieces he has
just recently arranged. They were lyrical and captivating. I thought they
were the highlight of the concert.
Ashby
David Kilpatrick
Ashby wrote:
>
> He had no problems with tuning or flow when I saw him. No stalls, and I
> don't remember him hitting any clams. Some pieces are nonfluid by design
> (legato is not a feature of Delta blues). He played Dixieland, Joplin,
> fiddle tunes, and blues. He also played a series of African pieces he has
> just recently arranged. They were lyrical and captivating. I thought they
> were the highlight of the concert.
It was in a set of Irish tunes, which generally should flow very
smoothly, that he seemed to hit a complete 'break off, rearrange
fingers, clamp down' moment which defeated him at least once - the only
time he played the chord again, rather than leave a dud unacknowledged.
All the blues stuff went just as I would expect and was, as you say, as
hopppy as it sometimes needs to be.
He only did one African (pop rather than traditional) piece and it was
excellent - quite apart from anything else, it was a feat of memory, as
he was following a complex choral part and turning into a long guitar
solo with 3 part polyphony all the way.
The tuning problem may have been due to strings, he had two new ones on
the guitar - not a typical way to restring nylon, I usually do all the
basses or all the trebles at once and try to make sure it's three days
before any public playing. But Duck has been playing every night for a
long tour here, and would not have had that option.
David
Jeff Hildreth
black golpes
you can see this in his videos from Stefan Grosman's Guitar Workshop
According to Duck he does not have a Fleta but a Spanish flamenco by
another famous maker that has bee "out for repair" for a long time..
Duck used the Takamine flamenco in a nightclub gig in Ashland Oregon
This information will be confirmed after I find my Duck BAker Video
I believe I am correct but will post again if I am not...
OK On the COver of Fingerstyle Swing Guitar Duck is holding his
Takamine
Flamenco with black golpes and it has a factory pickup..
Ironically I showed up at the lesson with my flamenco guitar not
knowing he played one
Jeff
Mike P.
It's a Raya Pardo flamenco. Too beloved, and felt to be too fragile,
to travel with -- thus the Takamine w/ pickup.
A great (if now slightly dated in some of the details) article about
Duck that -- for once, in a mainstream publication -- gets a number of
things right about nonclassical fingerstyle guitar playing:
http://sfweekly.com/issues/2000-08-23/music.html
If you listen to nonclassical music, try to find Duck's cd of Herbie
Nichols tunes, out in the last few years but on an obscure Japanese
label. You'll need to blink your ears, as they say.
Mike P.