Few musicians have marched onto the smooth jazz music scene with as much assurance, authority and versatility as Baatin displays on his debut album, Sunday Brunch. Not only does he demonstrate his talent as a producer, arranger, songwriter and occasional singer, but also his depth as a musician on keyboards, saxophone, guitar, bass and flute, among other instruments.
In addition, Baatin (pronounced baah-teen) shows a mastery of several styles -- smooth jazz instrumentals, silky-smooth R&B vocal numbers, and soulful funk tunes. His background lends itself to this variety of material since he has recorded and performed with "The Original P" Parliament/Funkadelic, jammed with the Allman Brothers, recorded with Bonnie Bramlett, toured with Otis Redding 111, and spent years in Macon, Georgia, playing with top musicians from the backing bands of James Brown, Bobby Womack, Joe Simon, Al Green and Joe Tex.
Baatin first developed his singing in high school when he sang tenor and was the student director of the renowned Boggs Academy A Cappella Chorus which toured the country giving concerts for two years. When Baatin was 19 and in college, he began his recording career with Playboy Records and released the instrumental single "Laid Back Funk" by his group Darkness of Evil. Baatin wrote and produced the song which was a Top 20 regional hit in the Northeast and Midwest.
"I appreciate many types of music," explains Baatin, "but for this album I chose smooth jazz because I feel there is a lot of room for further exploration in this genre. I like to incorporate bits and pieces of different styles into the mix. That's something I learned from listening to Miles Davis, who didn't hesitate to take jazz and mix in rock, R&B, blues, classical, world music or whatever he felt at the moment.
"People always ask me if I have a favorite instrument, but they're all equal to me. I just pick up whichever one I'm hearing in my head for a particular song. It's like I'm Sybil with a multiple personality disorder when it comes to instruments. In one situation I feel most at home on keyboards, but the next tune I might feel the most appropriate sound is saxophone. When I record, it's like I'm playing the studio more than just instruments. I love assembling the pans of the song and putting the music together. Since I play most of the instruments, I can move fast to get the sound I want and every aspect of the music is under my control. I don't have to call up a guitarist and try to explain to him what I want. I just do it."
Baatin has been inspired by a wide variety of musical styles -- R&B (Ray Charles, Otis Redding), soul (James Brown, Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, George Duke), jazz (Jimmy Smith, John Klemmer, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, George Benson, Wynton Marsalis), country (Hank Williams) and rock (The Doors, Cream, Santana, Frank Zappa). "There's something of value to experience in all genres of music."
Baatin's album kicks off with the title track, "Sunday Brunch," which he got the idea for while playing that type of event. "Everyone was laid back, but feeling festive. The audience is in a relaxed frame of mind with good food and good drink, and all they need is the right music to match that mood." The tunes range from the guitar-driven "The Uphill Road" to the saxophone-oriented "For Grover" (Baatin's tipof-the-hat to Grover Washington, Jr.). Baatin sings lead and background vocals on two songs -Anita Baker's "Whatever It Takes (To Make You Happy)" (the only song on the album Baatin didn't write) and "U Make Me Smile" ("that's my a cappella choir training coming out"). Two others feature only backing vocals including the perfectly-titled "Something Funky 4 U."
The album is already receiving airplay nationwide, but the road to national recognition had tough beginnings for Baatin, who grew up in a small Georgia town without a father in the house and during the early days of school integration. Born in Cleveland, he was raised from the age of three in Hawkinsville, Georgia (population 1,500 at that time). Distantly related to Patti LaBelle, Baatin learned to sing harmony in church from his mother. They had an old upright piano and he began teaching himself to play it at age five. "The first things I learned to play were a primitive 12-bar blues that we called 'Boogie Woogie' and songs on the radio like Ben E. King's 'Stand By Me'." Baatin started formal piano lessons at eight, and taught himself recorder and saxophone at nine. When he was only 13, he was already playing sax and organ professionally in the band The Soul Groovers in clubs on what was called "the chittlin' circuit."
"The first year they integrated the schools in the Sixties, I was the only Black student in Hawkinsville to be in the high school marching band, which was rough." For his last few years of high school, Baatin went to Boggs Academy near Augusta where he learned to sing in the choir, got to travel and met underclassman Ike Willis (who went on to be the lead singer for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention). "I mentored Ike and showed him the ropes at Boggs, and he introduced me to guitar playing." Baatin directed the men's Glee Club and the Men's Quartet (first place in state two years in a row), was President of his class, and earned the highest score in school on his SAT.
Baatin enrolled at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and earned a B.A. Degree in Sociology. There was an active music scene in Macon, a city where many national acts lived, recorded or came to get musicians for their bands including Aretha Franklin, James Brown, King Curtis and Bobby Womack. Capricorn Records was based there and many of their artists (Allman Brothers, Wet Willie) held jam sessions in the clubs or in the park on Sunday afternoons. "I was in one of the first integrated bands in that region. We called ourselves Black Snow. Then I started playing again with my old band from Hawkinsville. A booking agent changed our name to Darkness of Evil and we recorded for Playboy Records. I also did a session with Neil Larsen and Buzzy Feiten for a Bonnie Bramlett album on Capricorn." Baatin was listening to improvisational rock groups, but also began to explore avant garde jazz such as Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis. Also during college, Baatin musically tutored Otis Redding's sons, Dexter and Otis Jr. (whom Baatin still occasionally performs with).
Baatin also was in the group Bone, Holmes & Friends which included trombonist Tony "Bone" Dorsey (who went on to play with Paul McCartney & Wings, Joe Tex, Al Green and Joe Simon) and drummer Samarai Celestial (who joined Sun Ra's band). Baatin began concentrating more and more on jazz and started a three-piece combo called Top Secret with drummer Jamal Thomas (who has played with Maceo Parker, the S.O.S. Band and Black Oak Arkansas). Another band, Light Years, featured guitarist Greg Wright (The Jacksons, Mick Fleetwood's The Zoo).
A life-threatening illness in the mid-Eighties caused Baatin to analyze his life and decide to concentrate more intensely on his music. He outfitted his own recording studio, began performing regularly under his own name, and eventually moved to Atlanta to broaden his audience. He met "The Original P" Parliament/Funkadelic and they invited him to contribute to their 1998 What Dat Shakin' album. On "We Believe In The Funk," "Party Down" and the title track, Baatin contributed various parts including keyboards, guitar, a sax solo and backing vocals (he also engineered and mixed those tunes in his studio). Then Baatin joined the band for a lengthy national tour.
Baatin's name is an Arabic word that stands for a latent aspect of God. 'It's appropriate because I have always felt there is more to me than meets the eye. When I first met the guys in P-Funk, they just thought I was a backing keyboardist, saxophonist and rhythm guitarist. At rehearsal, they were deciding how to arrange 'Red Hot Mama' for the tour and when they came to the third guitar solo, I told them, 'I'd like to get a piece of that.' They didn't know I could play lead guitar. They thought I was kidding. But they said go ahead and give it a shot, and afterwards they gave me even more solos in the show. Sometimes with music it's fun to hold something back as a surprise and wait for just the right moment to bring it on."
