D'Cuba Jazz

Por: Michael J. West
Fecha: 2021.03.14
Fuente: jazzTimes

  Chris Barber 1930–2021   The trombonist, bassist, and bandleader was a key figure in the
evolution of both British jazz and rock

Chris Barber, a trombonist, bassist, and bandleader who was crucial in Britain’s trad-jazz revival of the 1950s—and who helped pave the way for rock’s “British Invasion” in the ’60s—died in his sleep on March 2. He was six weeks shy of his 91st birthday.

His death was announced on Twitter by his recording label, The Last
Music Company, and first reported in the U.K. newspaper /The Guardian/.
Cause and location of death were not disclosed; however, Barber had been
struggling with dementia for at least two years.

Barber was one of what the British music press called “The Three B’s,”
along with clarinetist Acker Bilk and trumpeter Kenny Ball. Although the
three generally worked separately, they were collectively responsible
for revitalizing the sagging fortunes of traditional New Orleans jazz
following the Second World War. Barber’s playing, in particular, was
remarked on for its authentic New Orleans flavor, making his music a
transatlantic success. His 1959 recording of Sidney Bechet’s “Petite
Fleur” was a Top 5 hit in both the U.K. and the United States; he toured
with his band in the U.S. that year to sellout crowds, earning the
sobriquet of “the man who brought Trad back to America.”

If his influence on British jazz was formidable, his influence on
British rock & roll was, however inadvertent, formative. Barber was an
early employer of banjo player and vocalist Lonnie Donegan in the 1950s;
he allowed Donegan and several other band members to perform American
folk and blues songs as his intermission act, playing in a style known
as “skiffle” and launching a national craze that inspired thousands of
teenagers (including John Lennon and Paul McCartney) to begin playing music.

Barber was also a mentor to guitarist Alexis Korner—later to found the
seminal group Blues Incorporated—and fulfilled the young musician’s
entreaty to sponsor British tours for American blues and R&B artists,
thus helping to ignite the British “blues boom” and the other major wing
of U.K. rock. “[W]ithout Chris Barber,” said former Rolling Stones
member Bill Wyman, “the Stones and the Beatles would not be where they
are now.”

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As these moves suggest, Barber’s trad bona fides did not preclude a
willingness to experiment. In addition to Donegan and Korner, he
controversially hired blues guitarist John Slaughter in the 1960s, and
later worked with former Fairport Convention guitarist Roger Hill as
well. In the 21st century he expanded his seven-piece band—already
unconventional due to its use of two clarinets and Slaughter’s electric
guitar—to 11 pieces with a third clarinet, a second trombone, and two
trumpets. The “Big Chris Barber Jazz Band” notably incorporated into its
book tunes by the likes of Joe Zawinul, albeit played in prewar styles.

“Jazz is fascinating because it gives people the chance to add their own
ideas to music,” Barber told /London Jazz News/ in 2018 about his
idiosyncratic choices. “Perhaps some people underestimate the creativity
that went into some original jazz masterpieces but working as a band you
find out what possible adjustments can be done to make a tune sound
right and how to stretch out the bits that are important.”

Donald Christopher Barber was born on April 17, 1930 in Welwyn Garden
City, a small town in the county of Hertfordshire, England. He grew up
in London, attending a school at which his mother was headmistress,
where he began his musical explorations at the age of seven with violin
lessons. Once World War II brought frequent air raids to the capital,
however, Barber was evacuated to a boarding school in the west of
England, where he first heard Coleman Hawkins’ “Body and Soul” and
quickly became a jazz fanatic and record collector.

After the war, he returned to London and began spending his free time in
the city’s jazz clubs. It was at one of these, the Humph Club, that he
one night bought a battered trombone from one of the musicians in
residence and began teaching himself to play. When he left school in
1948, he enrolled in London’s prestigious Guildhall School of Music,
where he studied trombone for three years. In 1949 he formed his first
band, the New Orleans Jazz Band, featuring himself and fellow Guildhall
students (including Korner).

A later band, founded in 1952, gained success after Barber hired star
trumpeter Ken Colyer and dubbed the group Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen. Despite
its name, Barber remained the leader, and when Colyer left in 1954 it
became the Chris Barber Jazz Band. To fill the empty chair, Barber
enlisted Northern Irish singer Ottilie Patterson, whom he would marry in
1959.

The band’s first album under Barber’s name, /New Orleans Joys/, featured
Donegan performing Leadbelly’s “Rock Island Line” in the skiffle style;
the track (on which Barber played bass) became a massive hit,
kickstarting a solo career for Donegan and also catapulting Barber’s
band to a lucrative touring career in the U.K. They became a favorite
concert draw, recording several live LPs in the ’50s before their
recording of “Petite Fleur” became a No. 3 U.K. hit in its own right. In
the United States it rose to No. 5, prompting the first of many
successful American tours.

Though Acker Bilk would eventually out-chart Barber with his 1961
“Stranger on the Shore,” Barber remained the most reliable seller among
the Three B’s and trad in general. When the revival spawned a film,
1962’s /It’s Trad, Dad!/, his band was given a prominent role. They were
also a top ticket draw throughout continental Europe, especially popular
in Scandinavia. Though Barber’s experiment with Slaughter coincided with
the rise of British rock in 1964, he never really abandoned the trad
jazz that had made his name, preferring to remain faithful to the New
Orleans tradition. Even so, he made gestures toward current trends: In
1967, his band recorded “Cat Call,” a Paul McCartney composition.

Barber continued to lead his band through the decades, balancing his
eccentric ideas with trad conventions, and bringing several longtime
collaborators along for the ride. Among others, trumpeter Pat Halcox, a
founding member of the Chris Barber Jazz Band, remained with him until
2008, Slaughter until 2010.

In 1991 Barber was awarded the Order of the British Empire; in 2014 his
autobiography, /Jazz Me Blues/, was published. He finally retired in
2019 at the age of 88—70 years after he founded his first band—with the
onset of his dementia.

Barber’s marriage to Ottilie Patterson was the second of four; she
predeceased him in 2011. He is survived by his fourth wife, the former
Kate Gray, and two children from a previous marriage, Christopher Barber
Jr. and Caroline Barber.