Duck Baker: The Music of Thelonious Monk Arranged for Fingerstyle Guitar

This video produced by Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop focuses on acoustic guitar arrangements by Duck Baker. Throughout, the instruction is interspersed with fascinating footage of Monk, but while the demonstrations are clearly filmed and often utilize split screen images, Baker’s verbal explanations could be a bit more technically oriented in terms of the keys, inversions, and intervals that are employed. An accompanying 21-page booklet features music (in both standard notation and tablature) for “Blue Monk,” “Lulu’s Back In Town,” “Light Blue” and “‘Round Midnight,” all transposed to keys that lend themselves to solo guitar. Nice, frequently inventive arrangements that are limited only by their folk guitar perspective and presentation.

Originally Published December 1, 1997