Spinning Song: Duck Baker Plays the Music of Herbie Nichols

Spinning Song: Duck Baker Plays the Music of Herbie Nichols is an album by American guitarist Duck Baker, released in 1996. It was reissued in 2002.

Spinning Song: Duck Baker Plays the Music of Herbie Nichols
Studio album by Duck Baker
Released	1996
Recorded	October 14, 1995–January 6, 1996
Genre	Blues, jazz
Length	40:35
Label	Avant
Producer	John Zorn, Kazunori Sugiyama
Duck Baker chronology
The Clear Blue Sky (1995) Spinning Song: Duck Baker Plays the Music of Herbie Nichols (1996) Northern Skies, Southern Blues (1997)

The album consists of songs written by American jazz pianist and composer Herbie Nichols who wrote the standard "Lady Sings the Blues".

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic

Music critic William York, writing for Allmusic, wrote of the album: "Nichols' compositions have their own sort of ambiguous, hard-to-pin-down harmonic aroma, filled with subtle harmonic twists and soft dissonances, but Baker somehow captures it in these versions even when he detours from the originals. He swings naturally and effortlessly when he wants, but he also takes things outside and gets abstract in his own quiet way... this album is a fine piece of work, one with the same type of subtlety and deceptive-sounding ease for which Nichols was/is known."

Track listing

All tracks composed by Herbie Nichols.

1. "The Third World" – 4:02
2. "The Happenings" – 4:34
3. "Lady Sings the Blues" – 5:16
4. "Nick at T's" – 4:46
5. "House Party Starting" – 5:21
6. "2300 Skiddoo" – 4:00
7. "Portrait of Ucha" – 4:06
8. "134th St." – 3:46
9. "Spinning Song" – 4:47

Personnel

• Duck Baker – acoustic guitar

Production

• John Zorn – producer
• Kazunori Sugiyama – producer
• Don Sternecker – engineer
• Allan Tucker – mastering
• Francis Wolff – photography
• Ikue Mori – design