‘I’m not the jazz guy’

Louis Baker might well be a headliner for the upcoming Wellington Jazz Festival, but he refuses to be pigeonholed by the genre.

‘‘I’ve got into lots of different stuff over the years, but I’m not ‘the jazz guy’. Music is just a means of conveying a sound. At the end of the day I’m just an artist making things.’’

Baker has built up a global following, notched up more than 7.5 million Spotify streams and had his 2021 EP Love Levitates described by Rolling Stone as ‘‘luxurious funk-soul’’.

But talking to Virginia Fallon in an interview on Stuff today, he reveals he started writing songs at about 11 while growing up in the Wellington suburb of Newtown and falling in love with Jimi Hendrix’s Electric LadyLand album. ‘‘He was a bit of a gateway into something incredible . . . When I heard Voodoo Child (Slight Return) it was all over for me.’’

The independent artist has collaborated with Clear Path Ensemble’s Cory Champion to produce four works for the jazz festival, saying his newest work has been hugely influenced by the poetry and philosophy books that floated around his childhood home. ‘‘It’s fair to say eastern thought has really informed my world view, and more recently the world of te ao Mā ori and whakapapa has inspired me as well. This show acknowledges both of these worlds.’’