Categories
American

BAKER, David N.

David Baker
David Baker (far left) leads the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra during the NEA Jazz Masters awards ceremony and concert in 2008.

Born in Indianapolis, IN, Dec 21, 1931 
Died in Bloomington, IN, March 26, 2016 

  • Baker was composer and jazz cellist. He was a major innovator of the cello as a jazz instrument. 
    • Baker tarted his career as a trombonist, but had to abandon that instrument due to an injury. 
  • Baker studied at Indiana University and later taught there, and became chair of the Jazz Department. He also wrote extensively on jazz and toured as a lecturer, and was Artistic Director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. 
  • Baker’s many honors include a Pulitzer Prize nomination (1973), a Kennedy Center Living Legend Jazz Award, and an induction to the Jazz Education Hall of Fame.1

NYT Obituary 

Biography from Jazz in America 

Sources

  1. Timothy M. Crain, “Baker, David,” Grove Music Online (October 4, 2012), accessed May 13, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002227656.

Pieces