David Baker

Do not confuse with UK engineer Dave Baker who worked with the Moody Blues.
Born: October 12, 1945 in Mount Vernon, New York. Died: July 14, 2004 in Rochester, New York. A Grammy Award-winning Producer and Engineer, Baker's career started in 1965 with a series of indoor and outdoor field recordings. In 1967 he joined Apostolic Studios in New York City and continued his training simultaneously at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and The Institute of Audio Research in New York. He rose to Chief Engineer at Apostolic and stayed on until the studio closed in 1970. From 1973 until 1975, he was Vanguard Records (opens in a new tab)' Chief Engineer. He then freelanced until the mid-1980s, when he was asked to remaster the entire Vanguard catalogue. He worked with over a dozen other labels than Vanguard, including ECM (opens in a new tab), Enja (opens in a new tab), Blue Note (opens in a new tab), Atlantic (opens in a new tab), Sony (opens in a new tab), Verve (opens in a new tab), Black Saint (opens in a new tab), Soul Note (opens in a new tab), MaxJazz (opens in a new tab), Universal (opens in a new tab) and Polygram (opens in a new tab), and worked with such artists as Frank Zappa (opens in a new tab) & The Mothers of Invention (opens in a new tab), John McLaughlin (opens in a new tab) and Larry Coryell (opens in a new tab), Shirley Horn (opens in a new tab), Al DiMeola (opens in a new tab), Medeski, Martin & Wood (opens in a new tab), Maceo Parker (opens in a new tab), John Scofield (opens in a new tab), John Zorn (opens in a new tab) and Sun Ra (opens in a new tab), and engineers/producers such as Yoshihiro Suzuki (opens in a new tab) and Yasohachi Itoh (opens in a new tab).