Tom Baker
Over the years Tom Baker mastered many instruments, and was equally adept on saxophones, clarinet or trumpet. In recent years he had been working on his string bass technique, and could do nice things on piano accordion too.
Although Tom was American born, his music career really began here and he took Australian citizenship in the mid-90s, so Australia can rightfully claim him as one of her very own jazz musicians.
Over the years Tom Baker mastered many instruments, and was equally adept on saxophones, clarinet or trumpet. In recent years he had been working on his string bass technique, and could do nice things on piano accordion too.
Over the years, he performed with a number of jazz greats, recording numerous albums and CDs both under his own name and with other jazz stars around the world.
Closer to home he performed regularly with James Morrison, Bob Barnard and Don Burrows; featured in festivals in Melbourne, Tasmania, Perth, Brisbane, and Canberra; and kept up a full schedule of regular jazz gigs at home in Sydney with his own Chicago Seven, Quartet and Swing Street Orchestra and with Geoff Bull's Olympia Jazz Band, the Cafe Society Orchestra and regular reunions of the original Tom Baker San Francisco Jazz Band.
In October 2001 Tom was making a major tour of Germany and Holland with the 'Swingcats' when he died suddenly of congenital heart failure in hospital at Breda (Netherlands). He was just 49. Vale.
Tom Baker appears on
The Last Will and Testament of John Sangster
Tony Gould, Len Barnard, Graeme Lyall and friends. A fitting musical tribute to one of Australia's unsung heroes of jazz - John Sangster - by some of this country's top performers.
