NEA Jazz Master Dr. David Baker examines Jazz During the Hard Bop Era with a presentation that dissects its essential ingredients and illuminates the various groups that made up the rich tradition of 40-plus years of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers on Friday, October 10, 2008, at 7 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St. The presentation is in conjunction with a two-day Blakey Salute sponsored by the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City’s historic 18th & Vine District.

A true jazz renaissance man, trombonist/cellist David Baker has been active in the jazz community as a musician, composer, educator, conductor, and author.  As a composer he has contributed a broad range of works, from small ensemble to orchestral, often straddling the fence between jazz and chamber music. In a career lasting more than five decades, he has authored more than 70 books on jazz and African American music.

Baker became a distinguished professor of music at Indiana University and chairman of the Jazz Department in 1966. He has published in numerous scholarly journals and has written several musical treatises as well as having authored more than 70 books on jazz and African American music. Since 1991, Baker has been the artistic and musical director of the acclaimed Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

This presentation is supported by NEA Jazz Masters Live, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.