@Bloor Hot Docs January 18
– 31
The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
506 Bloor Street West (Bloor & Bathurst)
Some consider Ginger Baker to be the world's greatest living drummer. His jazz rock brew is a heady one. Baker was experimental, progressive, and unwavering in his thirst for musical knowledge. After fifty years he remains one
of rock’s most colourful characters and one of its strangest. The red haired, hollow-cheeked demon who drove
Cream, Blind Faith, Masters of Reality and other bands with stunning drum work
is the subject of a new documentary by Jay Bulger. Strange on toast for the
fans.
For everything he has
achieved in music, in both jazz and rock milieus, Baker today is a loner, a bitter ex
junkie with plenty of grudges who craves isolation, horses and guns and says
exactly whatever comes into his mind. He
isn’t afraid to use his cane or fists in venting anger. Bulger’s brave, on a mission to celebrate the
man, the myth and the crazy who seems to know what he’s in for, but dives in
anyway. It’s a fascinating ride
especially for those who felt the impact of Cream and Blind Faith when they
hit.
Baker’s life is
extraordinary, first because he has survived heroin, the drug he began using in
his mid-teens. But most impressively, he
has survived emotional extremes that woulkdflatten anyone else, geographical and lifestyle extremes
and wild swings from wealth to abject poverty and back again many
times. Baker as seen in the doc is an especially difficult person
who seems to be calm because age and ill health keep him more or less still.
Difficult seems such a mild
word to describe Baker. In an
unforgettable scene, Bulger and Baker are this far apart screaming into each
other’s faces, hardly the expected behaviour between a documentarian and his
subject. You see, Baker had beaten
Bulger with his cane and drawn blood.
Bulger was demanding an apology that would never come.
It’s as though Bulger
didn’t know what he was up against. He
could have been as easily shot as wounded.
Well, Bulger lives. And his story
of Ginger Baker, the oddest duck from the British invasion of America, is here
for us all to drink up. At 73, Baker
has not mellowed but you can’t help but think was thrilled to receive the
notice of a filmmaker and potentially new fans.
He lives on an armored gated ranch in Africa, if he hasn’t abandoned
that by now as well.
The films music is terrific.
The early nostalgia-heavy White Room, Sunshine of Your Love, his introduction
to Fela Kuti’s deep and disturbing vibe, and his musical forays into
progressive bands that ultimately fired him, and interesting collaborations remind
us of that raw power he has, to express himself through indescribably moving
drumming.
Baker is a polo and horse fanatic with the unique skill of staying on a horse no matter what. He’s on his fourth wife, and they have all been beautiful, strong women. He abandoned his own children in favour of step children. He lived in an empty shed in rural Italy once with seven dogs and bunch of horses and nothing else. Top and bottom many times over.
Baker attracts people and
repels them at the same time. He has
unsteady relationships with his early band members from Cream and Blind Faith
who admit they're frightened of him. Eric
Clapton and Jack Bruce say they love him but don’t keep in touch because he’s
too much.
Bulger uses brilliant animated sequences fill in the more violent episodes in Baker’s life as well as his disappointments, loneliness and childhood traumas. It traces the history of the heavy, repetitive rat-a-tat that fed his drum fever, the sounds of bombs dropping over London when he was a little boy. Its heady stuff. And Baker won’t talk about it in a personal way without taking his dark glasses off. So Bulger illustrates. His Baker is a drummer on a slave ship, he’s bloodied and everywhere he goes, fires erupt.
Baker’s life appears to remain
unstable. His reward for having made
wonderful sounds for more than fifty years, having been admired and copied by
almost every heavy metal drummer is life in isolation, waiting
for the money to run out, far from all
the people and things that made his life wonderful and unbearable. It’s unclear what lies ahead.
BEWARE OF MR. BAKER screening dates and times at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema:
Friday, January 18 4:15 p.m., 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, January 19 1:00 p.m., 6:30 p.m. Sunday, January 20 9:00 p.m.
Monday, January 21 6:45 p.m.
Tuesday, January 22 9:00 p.m.
Wednesday, January 23 9:00 p.m.
Friday, January 25 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, January 26 4:30 p.m., 9:15 p.m.
Sunday, January 27 6:45 p.m.
Tuesday, January 29 6:45 p.m.
Wednesday, January 30 9:00 p.m.
Thursday, January 31 9:00 p.m.
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