Gig review: Ginger Baker’s Jazz Confusion, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow

By KENNY MATHIESON
Published on 03/07/2012 02:06

LIKE Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker was already established on the UK jazz scene before Cream and rock stardom beckoned, and the drummer has always insisted that Cream was primarily about improvisation anyway.

He is now in his early seventies, and if ill-health and the rigours of a famously wild lifestyle have taken their toll on his former ferocity, his drumming still displays impressive energy, but in a more controlled and focused fashion.

He was joined in the percussion department by African drummer Abass Dodoo, and the pair set up an intricate percussive interplay on drumkit and hand drums that underpinned every tune, and eluded standard classifications like swing or groove. If anything, there was an African feel to the precise-but-loose feel they generated.

The quartet was completed by saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis and bassist Alec Dankworth (alternating between double bass and electric bass guitar), both of whom were amply featured as soloists, and to good effect. Their chosen material included classic modern jazz tunes by Wayne Shorter and Thelonious Monk, an African folk tune, Ginger Spice (not that one – a tune written for the drummer by Ron Miles), and compositions by Ellis and Baker.

The latter included the drummer’s tribute to one of his early contemporaries on the London jazz scene, Cyril Davies, and another inspired by driving his car off a cliff in Algeria.

All good stuff, although anyone looking for Cream-style pyrotechnics might have been disappointed.

Rating: ***