Bryan Baker

Quartet leader and guitarist Bryan Baker is the recipient of the Billboard Magazine Endowed Scholarship, presented each year to Berklee's single most promising, upper-semester student. The group's performance at last fall's Monterey Jazz Festival lifted the audience in the festival's Coffeehouse Gallery right out of their chairs. In January 2006, Baker and the group set up shop in New York's legendary Avatar Studios. The result is a slice of Bryan's mind - "Aphotic." Soaring, biting, very electric jazz guitar, joined to a full-bodied tenor saxophone, over a rock pulse. The disc is expected to debut in May 2006.

Bryan Baker began his studies at Berklee in the fall of 2003, majoring in Performance, after being awarded a full tuition scholarship. He was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and was raised in Pasadena, California. His mother is an artist and a dancer, and his father is a guitarist. Growing up in this artistic environment set the stage for his early development as a musician; he began his formal training on the guitar at age four.

After nine years of intensive study, Bryan was awarded a full tuition scholarship to attend the innovative Los Angeles Music Academy, from which he graduated cum laude, at age 14. He spent the next two years performing in various jazz and rock bands in Southern California, and at 16, Bryan auditioned for and was awarded his full tuition scholarship on Berklee's World Scholarship Tour.

Throughout his time at Berklee, he has studied with Rick Peckham, Mick Goodrick '67, David Tronzo and Hal Crook '72, among others. He has performed with other major talents, among them Bob Mintzer, Dave Zinno, Bob Gullotti '72, Jimmy Haslip, and Roswell Rudd.

Bryan has performed in dozens of Berklee events, led his own concerts, and performed regularly at local clubs and national festivals. Berklee is still buzzing about his smoking performance on campus April 2005, with Russ Ferrante and Marcus Baylor of the Yellowjackets. That May, Bryan represented the college at the Blue Note in New York as a member of the Berklee Scholarship Jazz Ensemble, led by bassist Esperanza Spalding '05.

Saxophonist Aaron Henry recently graduated from Berklee with honors earning a degree in Performance. He was the recipient of the Charlie Parker Scholarship for excellence in woodwind performance in 2003, and also received a World Scholarship Tour award to begin his studies in 2002. Since coming to Berklee, Aaron has performed and studied with artists such as Joe Lovano '72, Michel Camilo, Hal Crook '72, George Garzone '72, Frank Tiberi, Joanne Brackeen, and Tiger Okoshi '75.

He has also traveled to the North Sea Jazz Festival to perform with the Chie Imaizui Jazz Orchestra, sponsored by IAJE. Recently, Aaron was selected as one of only two tenor saxophonists to audition for Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Terence Blanchard, for entry to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at USC.

Bryan Ladd began playing bass when he was 11 years old. His father is an electric bassist who currently gigs in the greater Hartford area; since there was always a bass in the house, Bryan gravitated towards it as soon as he was big enough to hold it. With his father as mentor, Bryan spent most of high school learning a lot of funk/R&B/Motown music and gigged regularly throughout Connecticut and New York. The groups he performed in played a broad span of music, ranging from Steely Dan to James Brown.

In 2002, Bryan began studying jazz at Berklee on a generous scholarship from the school. Since his enrollment, Bryan has had the honor of performing with such artists as Kenwood Dennard '76, Chaka Khan, Russell Ferrante, Terry Lyne Carrington '83, George Duke, Marcus Baylor, John Blackwell '95, Melvin Sparks, and Jean Baylor.

Drummer Nick Falk is a Performance major at Berklee, where he has studied percussion with Bob Gullotti '72, Hal Crook '72, John Ramsay, Ralph Peterson, Ian Froman '75, Jon Hazilla, and Dave Samuels. He has performed at the Maine Jazz Festival two years, opening for Dave Brubeck and Cleo Laine. He has also performed on Maine Public Radio with many acts, including the Tom Snow Trio and his own group, the Seahorse Project.

He is a member of the student trombone supergroup Against the Grain (ATG), winners of the Eastern Trombone Workshop Competition for Jazz Ensemble and runners up in the International Trombone Association Competition. ATG has been featured in issues of Jazziz, and on the Jazziz CD, and recently performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival. Nick has performed with George Garzone '72, and Franco Pinna '00 and currently performs throughout New England with numerous groups. Nick was chosen for the 2004 and 2005 editions of the Berklee Monterey Quartet, and also played with the group at Washington, DC's Blues Alley nightclub.

Berklee College of Music was founded on the revolutionary principle that the best way to prepare students for careers in music was through the study and practice of contemporary music. For over half a century, the college has evolved constantly to reflect the state of the art of music and the music business. With over a dozen performance and nonperformance majors, a diverse and talented student body representing over 70 countries, and a music industry "who's who" of alumni, Berklee is the world's premier learning lab for the music of today -- and tomorrow.

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