[Instrumentally Baker] -- 40 years ago this week, on January 6, 1986, drummer Ginger Baker (August 19, 1939 – October 6, 2019) released his fifth solo album, Horses and Trees. Largely known as a blues and rock drummer, Baker's style was a melding of jazz and African rhythms, one that served him well as a pioneer in jazz fusion and world music [Adam Budofski (2010)].
But in the first half of the 1980s, Baker was largely absent from the music scene, spending his time on an Italian olive farm. Producer/bassist Bill Laswell somehow talked Baker into doing session work for PIL's 1985 release (named invariably for the specific format: Album, Cassette, CD), and that work led directly to Baker recording his 1986 solo album with Laswell [LA Times (1988)].
I'm not sure how Baker went from the alt rock of PIL to this collection of instrumental and danceable tracks found on Horses and Trees, but I'm thankful for whomever or whatever inspired Baker and Laswell.
Horses and Trees features not only a who's who of percussionists and musicians from the world music scene (Aïyb Dieng, Foday Musa Suso, Daniel Ponce, Naná Vasconcelos, L. Shankar, and Nicky Skopelitis), but also turntablist Grand Mixer DXT (then known as Grandmixer D.ST). Laswell may have been the primary songwriter on this album, but it was the confluence of all these musicians that resulted an amazing blending of jazz, funk, electronica, reggae, hip-hop, etc.
This week in 2026 has been heavy. So I really needed something like Horses and Trees to anchor a session of movement and meditation. Even if only for 30-odd minutes.
Flashback: "Horses and Trees (January 6, 1986)
And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.
See you in seven!
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