Kenny Baker

Kenny Baker (1 March 1921 – 7 December 1999) was an English jazz trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn player, and a composer. Biography Baker was born in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. He 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 "Bakerloo Non-Stop" recorded for the Decca record label in 1946. He played a tenor saxophone solo on "Johnny Gray", the piece recorded by both Baker and the drummer Jack Parnell. In the 1950s, Baker led his own group called Baker's Dozen for which he played lead and solos. With this group he performed on the first regular jazz show on British radio, the BBC Light Programme series Let's Settle For Music. By the 1950s, he was regularly performing in studios with his numerous jazz recordings appearing as a quartet for Parlophone, and groups of all kinds for Nixa and others. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was still on call for film and studio work. He often appeared on BBC Radio's Sounds of Jazz programme introduced by Peter Clayton in the 1970s with recordings made at the Maida Vale Studios in London and broadcast late on Sunday evenings.