by Caiti Beth McKinney
Hi Horn Friends!
This September, I want to introduce a composer who has written over 2000 compositions, from chamber and solo music to film scores and, most of all, jazz. David Nathaniel Baker, a Pulitzer prize-nominated, Emmy award-winning musician, was among the first to write jazz method books. (Jazz had previously been taught primarily through aural instruction.) The definition of grit and determination, he dealt with a series of difficult life circumstances that could have ended his career. Instead, he triumphed over discrimination and tragedy to become a musical paragon.
Born in Indianapolis in 1931, Baker was raised during the years of segregation and so was required to attend schools designated for African American students. It was while attending Crispus Attucks High School that he began performing on trombone, and he quickly became a regular in the Indianapolis jazz scene during the 1940s and 50s. He then attended Indiana University where he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education. In 1953, Baker was involved in a car accident which injured his jaw and derailed his thriving trombone career.
After completing his education, Baker began teaching at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. During his tenure at the historically Black college, he taught composition to a number of rising composers, including John Elwood Price. However, after his marriage to white opera singer Eugenia Marie Jones, Baker was forced to resign his position due to the state’s anti-miscegenation laws which were not repealed until 1969.
Eventually, Baker returned to academia when he became a professor at Indiana University where he founded the jazz studies program. In 1991, he began working with Gunther Schuller (a name we as horn players should all know) to run the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.
Although his main focus was jazz, Baker composed many works for orchestral instruments, at one point completing a commission for the International Horn Society. His works which utilize horn include Piece for Brass Quintet and Solo Orchestra (1988) and three woodwind quintets composed in 1971, including one entitled From “The Black Frontier.” While none of these works has been recorded—I’m issuing another challenge here—please enjoy this video of him with a jazz group in 1976.
