LITTLE ROCK — Nat Baldwin has been living the best of both worlds for the past few years.
The 31-year-old bassist has been a part of the beloved indie dance-pop group Dirty Projectors off and on since 2005 and at the same time has followed his jazz and experimental muse on solo albums such as Enter the Winter, Most Valuable Player and the current People Changes, the tour that brings him to Little Rock on Tuesday.
Uniquely, Baldwin plays the upright bass - often with a bow - and sings in a curious falsetto that sometimes recalls Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons.
It’s a starkly beautiful combination, especially on People Changes, which spreads itself from the sweet, endearing “A Little Lost,” which is almost apoppish love song, to the furious, layered cacophony of “Real Fakes” and the swelling free-jazz screech of “What Is There.”
On his way from Ohio toa gig in North Manchester, Ind., Baldwin is on the phone and talking about his career and this current tour of small venues.
Growing up in Kittery,Maine, and later Portsmouth, N.H., Baldwin was more of a jock than a musician (that’s his junior high trophy on the cover of Most Valuable Player). He played basketball before finally picking up music his senior year.
“I’d been around music all my life. My dad is a musician,” he says. “My senior year I started thinking about college and finding something I could do myentire life. I was looking at schools just based on basketball scholarships and I was making a huge decision on something like basketball that I would only be doing for the next four years. It was good timing that I found music when I did.”
Not that he has given up on basketball. He’s still a fan.
“I don’t play basketball as much as I used to, but I still follow it. The Celtics are my team.”
While he may be best known for his Dirty Projectors work (he has also played with Vampire Weekend and studied under avant-garde and jazz legend Anthony Braxton), Baldwin’s solo work is a crucial outlet for him.
“I’m glad I have both,” he says. “It’s different both musically and the way we travel, with the level of exposureand stuff. But I like having it both ways. I like having to set up my own tours and having that connection with the people putting on the shows.”
While a few of the tracks on People Changes feature other instruments (“Lifted,” for instance, is a fine and startling exercise that has bursts of horn and percussion), for this tour and his show at Dreamland Ballroom, it’s just Baldwin, his bow and his bass.
“The shows are pretty true to the record,” says Baldwin, noting that this is his fourth or fifth appearance in Little Rock. “There are some songs with arrangements that are more fleshed out and with more instruments, but for the most part the record is pretty stripped down. I wanted to make it feel like a good live show.”Nat Baldwin
Where:
Dreamland Ballroom, 800 W. Ninth St., Little Rock
When:
today ; art show begins at 6 p.m.; music begins at 8 p.m. with a pre-show puppet musical
Price:
$5
(501) 255-5700 dreamlandballroom.com
Style, Pages 34 on 04/19/2011