Kenny Baker (trumpeter)
Kenny Baker (1 March 1921 in Withernsea,East Riding of Yorkshire – 7 December 1999) was an accomplished player of jazz trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn, and a composer.
Biography
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.
Kenneth Baker
Kenneth, Ken or Kenny Baker may refer to:
Kenny Baker (fiddler)
Kenneth Clayton Baker (June 26, 1926 – July 8, 2011) was an American fiddle player best known for his 25-year tenure with Bill Monroe and his group The Bluegrass Boys.
Biography
Baker was born in Burdine, Kentucky and learned the fiddle by accompanying his father, also a fiddler. Early on, he was influenced by the swing fiddler Marion Sumner, not to mention Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. After working for Bethlehem Steel in the coal mines of Kentucky, he served in the United States Navy before pursuing a musical career full-time. He soon joined Don Gibson's band as a replacement for Marion Sumner. Baker, who played western swing, had little interest in bluegrass music until he heard "Wheel Hoss" and "Roanoke". During a package show with Don Gibson, Baker met Monroe and was offered a job. He cut his first recordings with Monroe's Bluegrass Boys on December 15, 1957.
Kenny Baker served more years in Monroe's band than any other musician and was selected by Monroe to record the fiddle tunes passed down from Uncle Pen Vandiver. After leaving the Bluegrass Boys in 1984, Baker played with a group of friends, Bob Black, Alan Murphy, and Aleta Murphy. Bob Black and Alan Murphy recorded an album with Baker in 1973, Dry & Dusty. After the one summer with Black and the Murphy's, Baker teamed with Josh Graves, who had played resonator guitar for Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs as a Foggy Mountain Boy. Baker teamed with Graves until Graves' death in 2006.
Kenny Baker (American performer)
Kenneth Laurence "Kenny" Baker (September 30, 1912 – August 10, 1985) was an American singer and actor who first gained notice as the featured singer on radio's The Jack Benny Program during the 1930s.
Film
At the height of his radio fame, and after leaving the Benny show in 1939 (succeeded by Dennis Day, whose tenor was similar to Baker's), he appeared in 17 film musicals, including Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937), At the Circus (1939), and The Harvey Girls (1946). He also starred in the 1939 movie version of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. He later co-starred with Mary Martin in the original Broadway production of Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash's One Touch of Venus (1943).
Radio
After being on the Benny program 1935-1939, Baker returned to radio as a regular performer on Fred Allen's Texaco Star Theater program (1940–1942). He was also heard on Blue Ribbon Town (1943-1944) and Glamour Manor (1945-1947). He had his own programs, the Kenny Baker Show (1954) and Sincerely--Kenny Baker (1946). The latter was syndicated by Frederick W. Ziv Company via electrical transcription.
Podcasts:
