Baker's Keyboard Lounge
Encyclopedia
Baker's Keyboard Lounge located on 20510 Livernois Street in Detroit, Michigan
, claims to be the world's oldest operating jazz
club, operating since May 1934.
restaurant
. In 1934, their son Clarence Baker began booking jazz pianists, but Baker's was still known at that time principally as a restaurant. In 1939 Clarence, took over ownership after Chris had suffered from a stroke
. That same year, Clarence began booking pianists from outside the Detroit area, although the club featured local pianist Pat Flowers
from 1940 until 1954. In 1952, the club was expanded and remodeled to the Art Deco
look that it retains today. By 1954, the business had rapidly expanded, and by the following year, Baker's began featuring major jazz acts, notably Art Tatum
who played the last two years of his life, including his last performance in April 1956, Dave Brubeck
in 1957 and Gerry Mulligan
in 1958. During the 1950s Modern jazz was less common at Baker's than in was in the 1960s, when the emphasis of the club's music changed to Hard Bop
. During the 1960s Clarence leased the club out, but resumed personal control in the 1970s.
Baker's is noted for its long history of presenting local and major jazz acts, its excellent acoustics, its intimacy - seating only 99, its Art Deco
furnishings, including a distinctive, piano-shaped bar painted with a keyboard motif, Art Deco style paintings of European city landscapes by Harry Julian Carew, tilted mirrors that allow patrons to view the pianist's hands, and its Steinway piano
which was selected and purchased in New York by Tatum for Clarence in the 1950s. The club still displays its original liquor pricelist from 1934, showing the price of beer at 26 cents.
In 1986, Baker's was designated as an Historic Site by the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office. The historic significance of the site is stated as follows:
Many famous musicians, especially jazz musicians, have played in the club during its history, such as Louis Armstrong
, John Coltrane
, Oscar Peterson
, Fats Waller
, Meade Lux, Errol Garner, Art Tatum
, Tommy Flanagan
, Pat Flowers
, Nat King Cole
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Tommy Flanagan
, George Shearing
, Cab Calloway
, Betty Carter
, Gerry Mulligan
, Sonny Stitt
, Kenny Burrell
, Barry Harris
, Donald Byrd
, Earl Klugh
, Pepper Adams
, and Miles Davis
have all performed at the club. Gene Krupa
performed with his Quartet for several engagements at Baker's.
Terry Pollard
was discovered by Terry Gibbs
while playing at Baker's in 1952-53, subsequently joining the Terry Gibbs Quartet for a national tour.
Baker's is the site of an incident in 1954 involving Miles Davis which is credited by some for Davis breaking his heroin addiction. The widely-related version of the story, attributed to Richard (Prophet) Jennings is that Davis, while in Detroit playing at the Blue Bird club as a guest soloist in Billy Mitchell
's house band along with Flanagan, Elvin Jones
, Carter, Yusef Lateef
, Barry Harris
, Thad Jones
, Curtis Fuller
and Donald Byrd
stumbled into Baker's out of the rain, soaking wet and carrying his trumpet in a paper bag under his coat, walked to the bandstand and interrupted Max Roach
and Clifford Brown
in the midst of performing Sweet Georgia Brown
by beginning to play My Funny Valentine
, and then, after finishing the song, stumbled back into the rainy night. Davis was supposedly embarrassed into getting clean by this incident. In his autobiography, Davis disputed this account, stating that Roach had requested that Davis play with him that night, and that the details of the incident, such as carrying his horn in a paper bag and interrupting Roach and Brown, were fictional and that his decision to quit heroin was unrelated to the incident.
Then-unknown Barbra Streisand
performed at Baker's in 1961.
Charles Mingus
's September 1969 performances at Baker's were a part of his comeback in that year.
Klugh credits his frequenting Baker's as a teenager in the early 1970s, chaperoned by his mother, as a significant factor in the development of his music career, enabling him to meet prominent artists who were playing there, such as George Benson
, Chick Corea
and Lateef, each of whom he then toured or recorded with, and Bill Evans
who was a central influnce on Klugh's songwriting.
Jazz singer Eddie Jefferson
was shot and killed at Baker's Keyboard Lounge on May 8, 1979. He had left the club with alto sax man Richie Cole
around 1:35 a.m. and was shot while walking out of the building.
Woody Shaw
recorded his postumously-released 1997 album Bemsha Swing for Blue Note
at Baker's in 1986, along with Geri Allen
, Robert Hurst
and Roy Brooks
.
In 1987, Anita Baker
filmed the music video
for the track "Same Ole Love" from her album Rapture at Baker's.
Saxophonist James Carter
recorded the album Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, also featuring David Murray, Franz Jackson
and Johnny Griffin
at Baker's in June 2001.
to install his famous piano-shaped swimming pool at his home in Beverly Hills.
The 2002 documentary film Standing in the Shadows of Motown includes film of a performance by the Funk Brothers at Baker's.
Kenny Dixon Jr.
's 2004 album Black Mahogani includes the track "Back at Bakers (on Livernois)"
Baker's is the setting for a performance by one of the principal characters in Cheryl Robinson's 2005 novel If It Ain't One Thing.
Baker's is the scene of a chapter in E.M. and Esther Bronner's 2010 novel, The Red Squad.
Baker's is referenced on the ABC
police procedural drama Detroit 1-8-7
.
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, claims to be the world's oldest operating jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
club, operating since May 1934.
Early History
In 1933, Chris and Fannie Baker opened Baker's as a lunchtime sandwichSandwich
A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...
restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
. In 1934, their son Clarence Baker began booking jazz pianists, but Baker's was still known at that time principally as a restaurant. In 1939 Clarence, took over ownership after Chris had suffered from a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. That same year, Clarence began booking pianists from outside the Detroit area, although the club featured local pianist Pat Flowers
Pat Flowers
Ivelee Patrick "Pat" Flowers was an American jazz pianist and singer.Flowers started his professional career as the pianist during intermissions at Uncle Tom's Cabin in Detroit when he was 18 years old...
from 1940 until 1954. In 1952, the club was expanded and remodeled to the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
look that it retains today. By 1954, the business had rapidly expanded, and by the following year, Baker's began featuring major jazz acts, notably Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
who played the last two years of his life, including his last performance in April 1956, Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
in 1957 and Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
in 1958. During the 1950s Modern jazz was less common at Baker's than in was in the 1960s, when the emphasis of the club's music changed to Hard Bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
. During the 1960s Clarence leased the club out, but resumed personal control in the 1970s.
Baker's is noted for its long history of presenting local and major jazz acts, its excellent acoustics, its intimacy - seating only 99, its Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
furnishings, including a distinctive, piano-shaped bar painted with a keyboard motif, Art Deco style paintings of European city landscapes by Harry Julian Carew, tilted mirrors that allow patrons to view the pianist's hands, and its Steinway piano
Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...
which was selected and purchased in New York by Tatum for Clarence in the 1950s. The club still displays its original liquor pricelist from 1934, showing the price of beer at 26 cents.
In 1986, Baker's was designated as an Historic Site by the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office. The historic significance of the site is stated as follows:
-
- Baker's Keyboard Lounge has significance as Michigan's jazz mecca and Detroit's oldest jazz club in continuous operation. Founded in May 1933 by Chris Baker as a restaurant and piano bar, the present jazz orientation of the club has been firmly in place since 1939. Baker's Keyboard Lounge has hosted the greatest names in blues and jazz since that date. Some of the musicians who have played the club include: Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, Sarah Vaughn, Joe Williams, Maynard Ferguson, Cab Calloway, Woody Herman, Modern Jazz Quartet, and Nat "King" Cole; to name but a few. In 1984, Baker's Keyboard Lounge celebrated fifty-years of the sound of jazz in Detroit and Michigan.
Recent History
The popularity of the club declined in the 1970s and 1980s, and was nearly closed on several occasions. In 1996, after owning the club for 57 years, Clarence Baker sold the club to John Colbert and Juanita Jackson. The new owners were challenged by declining interests in live jazz performances, due to the aging of the fanbase of jazz purists, a shift to mainstream jazz from the historic Hard Bop emphasis of the club, and the popularity of hip hop. The new ownership attempted to compensate with fundraisers, a reduction in bookings of nationally-known acts and emphasis on local artists, and diversifying the lineup to include R&B and comedy acts. The club experienced a resurgence in popularity, but the downturn in the economy led Colbert to declare bankruptcy in 2010, leading to widespread speculation that the club would finally close. In 2011, the club was purchased at a bankruptcy sale, by Hugh W. Smith III, who had been manager of the club for the past two years and Eric Whitaker Sr. Smith and Whitaker vowed to keep Baker's open as a jazz club.Notable performers and performances
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
, Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
, Meade Lux, Errol Garner, Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
, Tommy Flanagan
Tommy Flanagan
Thomas Lee Flanagan was an American jazz pianist born in Detroit, Michigan, particularly remembered for his work with Ella Fitzgerald...
, Pat Flowers
Pat Flowers
Ivelee Patrick "Pat" Flowers was an American jazz pianist and singer.Flowers started his professional career as the pianist during intermissions at Uncle Tom's Cabin in Detroit when he was 18 years old...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Tommy Flanagan
Tommy Flanagan
Thomas Lee Flanagan was an American jazz pianist born in Detroit, Michigan, particularly remembered for his work with Ella Fitzgerald...
, George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
, Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
, Betty Carter
Betty Carter
Betty Carter was an American jazz singer renowned for her improvisational technique and idiosyncratic vocal style...
, Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
, Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Kenny Burrell
Kenny Burrell
Kenneth Earl "Kenny" Burrell is an American jazz guitarist. His playing is grounded in bebop and blues; he has performed and recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians.-Biography:...
, Barry Harris
Barry Harris
Barry Doyle Harris is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.-Biography:Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960...
, Donald Byrd
Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II, is an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd is best known as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a...
, Earl Klugh
Earl Klugh
Earl Klugh is an American smooth jazz/crossover jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and composer.At the age of 13, Klugh was captivated by the guitar playing of Chet Atkins when Atkins made an appearance on the Perry Como Show. Klugh was a performing guest on several of Atkins' albums...
, Pepper Adams
Pepper Adams
Park Frederick "Pepper" Adams III was a jazz baritone saxophonist and composer. He composed 43 pieces, was the leader on twenty albums, and participated in 600 sessions as a sideman.-Biography:...
, and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
have all performed at the club. Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...
performed with his Quartet for several engagements at Baker's.
Terry Pollard
Terry Pollard
Terry Pollard was a jazz pianist prominent in the Detroit jazz scene of the 1940s and 1950s. She has been described as a "major player who was inexplicably overlooked."...
was discovered by Terry Gibbs
Terry Gibbs
Terry Gibbs is an American jazz vibraphonist and band leader.He has performed and/or recorded with Tommy Dorsey, Chubby Jackson, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Louie Bellson, Charlie Shavers, Mel Tormé, Buddy DeFranco, and others...
while playing at Baker's in 1952-53, subsequently joining the Terry Gibbs Quartet for a national tour.
Baker's is the site of an incident in 1954 involving Miles Davis which is credited by some for Davis breaking his heroin addiction. The widely-related version of the story, attributed to Richard (Prophet) Jennings is that Davis, while in Detroit playing at the Blue Bird club as a guest soloist in Billy Mitchell
Billy Mitchell (jazz musician)
Billy Mitchell was an American jazz tenor saxophonist known for his close association with fellow Detroiter Thad Jones and work with a variety of big bands including Woody Herman when he replaced Gene Ammons in his band...
's house band along with Flanagan, Elvin Jones
Elvin Jones
Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....
, Carter, Yusef Lateef
Yusef Lateef
Dr. Yusef Lateef is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he is known for...
, Barry Harris
Barry Harris
Barry Doyle Harris is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.-Biography:Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960...
, Thad Jones
Thad Jones
Thaddeus Joseph Jones was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader.-Biography:Thad Jones was born in Pontiac, Michigan to a musical family of ten . Thad Jones was a self taught musician, performing professionally by the age of sixteen...
, Curtis Fuller
Curtis Fuller
Curtis DuBois Fuller is an American jazz trombonist, known as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and contributor to many classic jazz recordings.-Biography:...
and Donald Byrd
Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II, is an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd is best known as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a...
stumbled into Baker's out of the rain, soaking wet and carrying his trumpet in a paper bag under his coat, walked to the bandstand and interrupted Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
and Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
in the midst of performing Sweet Georgia Brown
Sweet Georgia Brown
"Sweet Georgia Brown" is a jazz standard and pop tune written in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey .The tune was first recorded on March 19, 1925 by bandleader Ben Bernie, resulting in a five-week No. 1 for Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra...
by beginning to play My Funny Valentine
My Funny Valentine
"My Funny Valentine" is a show tune from the 1937 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms in which it was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green...
, and then, after finishing the song, stumbled back into the rainy night. Davis was supposedly embarrassed into getting clean by this incident. In his autobiography, Davis disputed this account, stating that Roach had requested that Davis play with him that night, and that the details of the incident, such as carrying his horn in a paper bag and interrupting Roach and Brown, were fictional and that his decision to quit heroin was unrelated to the incident.
Then-unknown Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
performed at Baker's in 1961.
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
's September 1969 performances at Baker's were a part of his comeback in that year.
Klugh credits his frequenting Baker's as a teenager in the early 1970s, chaperoned by his mother, as a significant factor in the development of his music career, enabling him to meet prominent artists who were playing there, such as George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
and Lateef, each of whom he then toured or recorded with, and Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
who was a central influnce on Klugh's songwriting.
Jazz singer Eddie Jefferson
Eddie Jefferson
Eddie Jefferson was a celebrated jazz vocalist and lyricist. He is credited as an innovator of vocalese, a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental composition or solo. Perhaps his best-known song is "Moody's Mood for Love", though it was first recorded by King Pleasure, who cited...
was shot and killed at Baker's Keyboard Lounge on May 8, 1979. He had left the club with alto sax man Richie Cole
Richie Cole
Richard Cole was an Australian rules footballer for the Collingwood and Essendon Football Clubs in the Australian Football League....
around 1:35 a.m. and was shot while walking out of the building.
Recordings and music videos
Father Tom Vaughan recorded the 1967 RCA Victor album Motor City Soul at Baker's.Woody Shaw
Woody Shaw
Woody Shaw was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer and band leader, often referred to as the "last innovator" in the jazz trumpet lineage...
recorded his postumously-released 1997 album Bemsha Swing for Blue Note
Blue note
In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...
at Baker's in 1986, along with Geri Allen
Geri Allen
Geri Allen is an American composer/pianist educator jazz pianist, raised in Detroit, Michigan, and educated in the Detroit Public Schools. Allen has worked with many of the greats of modern music, including Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Tony Williams, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette,...
, Robert Hurst
Robert Hurst (musician)
Robert Hurst is an American jazz bassist.Hurst played guitar early in his career before concentrating on bass. He worked with Out of the Blue in 1985 and also did work with musicians such as Tony Williams, Mulgrew Miller, Harry Connick Jr., Geri Allen, Russell Malone, and Steve Coleman...
and Roy Brooks
Roy Brooks
Roy Brooks was an American hard bop jazz drummer.-Biography:Brooks was born in Detroit and drummed since childhood. He was an outstanding varsity basketball player as a teenager and was offered a scholarship to the Detroit Institute of Technology; he attended the school for three semesters and...
.
In 1987, Anita Baker
Anita Baker
Anita Baker is an American R&B/soul jazz singer-songwriter. To date, Baker has won eight Grammy Awards, and has four platinum albums and two gold albums to her credit....
filmed the music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for the track "Same Ole Love" from her album Rapture at Baker's.
Saxophonist James Carter
James Carter (musician)
James Carter is an American jazz musician.Carter was born in Detroit, Michigan and learned to play there before moving to New York City. He has been prominent as a performer and recording artist on the jazz scene since the mid-1990s, playing saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet...
recorded the album Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, also featuring David Murray, Franz Jackson
Franz Jackson
Franz Jackson was a saxophonist and clarinetist of the Chicago jazz school.Notable as one of the last surviving jazz artists to have recorded pre-1940, Jackson was still active well into his 90s in various jazz clubs of Chicago...
and Johnny Griffin
Johnny Griffin
John Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
at Baker's in June 2001.
Cultural references
Baker's piano-shaped bar inspired LiberaceLiberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...
to install his famous piano-shaped swimming pool at his home in Beverly Hills.
The 2002 documentary film Standing in the Shadows of Motown includes film of a performance by the Funk Brothers at Baker's.
Kenny Dixon Jr.
Moodymann
Moodymann also known as Kenny Dixon Jr or KDJ for short, is a Techno/House musician based in Detroit, Michigan.He creates a thoroughly hybrid form of techno/house dance music, jazz, soul, disco and funk via his innovative use of reworked riffs, samples , and grooves taken from...
's 2004 album Black Mahogani includes the track "Back at Bakers (on Livernois)"
Baker's is the setting for a performance by one of the principal characters in Cheryl Robinson's 2005 novel If It Ain't One Thing.
Baker's is the scene of a chapter in E.M. and Esther Bronner's 2010 novel, The Red Squad.
Baker's is referenced on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
police procedural drama Detroit 1-8-7
Detroit 1-8-7
Detroit 1-8-7 is an American crime drama series about Detroit's leading homicide unit, created by Jason Richman for ABC. It features an ensemble cast of actors including Michael Imperioli and James McDaniel...
.