Leading symphonic jazz composer and educator, David N. Baker Jr., will deliver the annual George Washington Carver Lecture on Wednesday, March 2 at      7 p.m. in Smith Chapel.

Baker’s lecture will deal with the progress made towards equality, race relations and integration. His unique experiences as a composer, arranger, educator, recording artist and jazz musician will enlighten concerns of social justice and the influence of African Americans upon society for present and future generations.

Baker grew up in Indianapolis, IN, where he began the study of music in the Indianapolis public schools. By his teens, he had settled on the trombone, and was on his way toward a career in music by the time he graduated from Crispus Attucks High School (the only black high school in a still-segregated city).

He has performed in important groups as diverse as the big bands of Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton and Quincy Jones.

A 1953 accident forestalled his career as a trombonist, yet Baker responded by turning to a rigorous curriculum of cello studies. He has since pioneered the use of the cello in jazz.

Baker earned a bachelor’s in music education in 1953 and a master’s in music education in 1954, from at Indiana University, receiving additional instruction from composer Bernard Heiden and, later, cellist Janos Starker.

Following various teaching posts in Missouri, Indiana, and as a private instructor, he returned to Bloomington in 1966 a complete musician, writing a full-scale concert work utilizing jazz ensemble and orchestra, Roctions (My Indianapolis), in 1969. He has spent the past 30 years there, establishing one of the country's premiere jazz studies departments and encouraging younger generations of musicians with his seemingly endless compendium of experience.

The Carver Lecture is free and open to the public.