Trendsetter: Get to Know Local Jazz Musician Leland Baker

Photograph courtesy oF Rebecca Zilenziger/@rz_portraits.

How did you first get into jazz?

I started playing saxophone when I was fourteen in high school. It wasn’t until I got to college that I dove into the art of jazz, started studying it and fell in love with it. I switched my major at Loyola University in New Orleans from music industry to jazz studies. I attribute New Orleans to my musical beginnings. I learned a lot, not just at school, but in the city.

What are your favorite jazz bars in New Orleans?

Snug Harbor is probably one of the most famed jazz clubs in New Orleans. That’s where I got to see Jesse McBride, a piano player, who used to play every Tuesday. His band was called The Next Generation, and he inherited that from Harold Battiste, who was a New Orleans legend. The Next Generation featured a lot of the younger cats coming up. It was a good way to meet my peers, to sit in and learn and play. 

What is your position with the Newport Jazz Festival?

I grew up going to Newport Jazz Fest. It’s an honor to work for the Newport Festivals Foundation, the nonprofit responsible for producing the Newport Folk Fest and Jazz Fest. My role is music education manager. I work with the director of development to oversee music education programs. We started a music program in the Women’s Correctional Facility in Rhode Island. We also partner with different music schools around the state to provide free music lessons for any Rhode Islander ages nine to eighteen. 

What made you want to work with incarcerated women?

I think the work is extremely important. At the beginning of the year, we were invited to Jazz Congress, which is a conference at Lincoln Center in New York. I was on a panel discussion called Jazz, Crime and Justice with about five or six others who do the same kind of work within New York City. About half the panel were formerly incarcerated individuals, many who went on to careers in jazz. Jazz is music therapy, but jazz is also an actual skill set that they can pursue as a job when they get out.

I know you perform regularly at Courtland Club in Providence on Sundays. Are there any other venues where you perform?

I perform on Sundays at Courtland Club, monthly at Little Moss in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and on some Thursdays at the District in Providence. 

Do you have favorite businesses?

The new West African restaurant called Suya Joint. Living in the West End, I go to the Royal Bobcat a lot. I also love Dolores, The Slow Rhode. For live jazz, I love The Red Door, Nick-A-Nee’s on Tuesdays and Alchemy. 

Where do you get your personal style inspiration from?

I wear what I like. I like earth tones, and some jewelry that I always wear. I wear a lot of hats and caps. Some of the jewelry I got from my mom, some I inherited from other family members. This bracelet I got when I was in Spain a month ago. I bought it from a Senegalese man who made it. There was a certain energy when we were talking. I felt a connection to somebody that I didn’t know in a country I had never been to, but I understood there was probably some kind of ancestry between us.