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To those who knew Danny Barker, it’s probably difficult to believe that January 13, 2009 marks the 100th anniversary of his birth. The much-loved guitarist, banjoist, vocalist, author, composer, storyteller and self-proclaimed raconteur, who passed away on March 13, 1994, was always young at heart. An extremely charismatic man with a sly wit, he attracted folks of all ages, from youngsters to the elderly, to his realm and thus to jazz music.
Barker’s take on the dangers of being a young Black boy living in the French Quarter, where he resided with his paternal grandparents until the second grade, offers insight into his hilarious, straight-shooting style of social commentary. With a lifted brow and a knowing smile, he unhesitatingly remarked, “Oh, I just carried a watermelon, so everybody thought I was tame.”
Just steps away from his first home at 1027 Chartres Street, New Orleans will commemorate Barker’s centennial anniversary with various musical and informational events. The celebration begins on his birthdate, January 13, with the “Danny and Blue Lu Barker Estate Awards,” a free program hosted by their daughter, Sylvia Barker. Appropriately, Danny’s cousin, trombonist Lucien Barbarin, leads a band that kicks off at 7 p.m.
“I was raised up in the Barbarin family,” explained Barker, who moved from the French Quarter, a place he remembered as smelling like spaghetti and meatballs, to lower Esplanade Avenue after his mother re-married. His grandparents, alto saxophonist Isodore, who played with the Onward Brass Band, and Josephine Barbarin, encouraged their children to play music. “If you’ve got your instrument, you’re looked up to. And most kids want to be looked up to. They want to be Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali,” Barker explained. “The musicians were the celebrities of New Orleans. They didn’t make fabulous money, but they were entertainers and people cherished them, idolized them.”
Barker once told how he, along with his uncles, Willie, Lucien and Paul Barbarin, came to recognize the “real” New Orleans from being surrounded by music emanating from the nearby benevolent society halls and the brass bands parading down the street. His uncle, the late great drummer Paul Barbarin, was not only a role model for the young Barker but sent the aspiring musician his first banjo. Later it was Paul who encouraged Barker to join him in New York. Before leaving in 1930, however, Barker married his New Orleans sweetheart, Louisa Dupont. For professional reasons, she dubbed herself Blue Lu, a name that first appeared on her 1938 Decca release, “Don’t You Feel My Leg,” which was written by Danny.
Barker first took up ukulele playing in children’s spasm bands, including the Boozan Kings. His little band would get a crowd going on tunes like “Eh las-ba,” a song Barker continued to perform and record throughout his career. “We’d make people shake and wake and wobble,” Barker once declared. Soon, he said, he went from being a “ham fat” musician (a term for amateur players in reference to young trombonists greasing their slides with lard) to a professional.
Barker considered the start of his musical career as the day when he jumped on the back of a truck with Kid Rena’s band to sub for a banjoist who had over-indulged. While still living and gigging in New Orleans, he made his first road trip with bluesman Little Brother Montgomery. For almost 10 years in New York, he strummed fat chords with Cab Calloway’s band and even recorded with modern jazz legend Charlie Parker. He was befriended by and played with piano master Jelly Roll Morton, recorded with Louis Armstrong and decades later went into the studio with both Dr. John and Wynton Marsalis. Numerous organizations have recognized his stature and contributions to jazz. The National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master and in 1993 and he was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame.
Summoned by his Uncle Paul, Barker headed for New York in 1930. He recalled that he’d only been in the city for two days before meeting both King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. His uncle took him to the Rhythm Club where the two New Orleans expatriates were shooting pool.
“He said, ‘Jelly, I want you to meet my nephew; he’s just comin’ up from the south,’” Barker related. “And King Oliver was standing there and said, ‘How ya doin’ Little Gizzard?’ He’d give you a name, ‘Gizzard Mouth.’ And Jelly said, ‘How ya doin’ Hometown, welcome to New York. You’re right in the rat’s nest. There’s more rats in New York than they’ve got in a chicken coop.’ He called me Hometown, I don’t think he ever knew my name—he said it very fondly. I’d see him around, and he’d say, ‘Hometown, I’ve got a couple of nice jobs to play. You think you can get some of the cockroaches together?’”
Barker was in New York just two weeks when his banjo, a $500 instrument, was stolen from a club. It was suggested by a bandleader that he buy a guitar as banjos were becoming less popular. Since he’d had never played a guitar, he borrowed one to try it out on a gig. “I’m sitting on the bandstand and I’m lookin’ at this instrument,” Barker recalled, “and the band is laughing. ’Cause I’m making believe I’m playin’ but ain’t nothin’ happening.”
Despite his successful career in New York, Barker may have given the world of jazz his greatest gift after he came home to New Orleans in 1965. Blue Lu returned first to care for her ailing mother. She relayed to him that the city was much improved from the days of Jim Crow laws. On his return, he took a position as assistant to the curator of the New Orleans Jazz Museum and gigged around the city.
Barker noticed that despite the market for brass bands, the ranks of the once-prominent groups had dwindled to just a few. He realized that there were no kids playing the style because they thought it was “old men’s music.”
The Barkers bought a house on Sere Street and joined the nearby Fairview Baptist Church, which he described as having “a finger-poppin’ congregation.” One day in the early 1970s, the minister asked if he was interested in organizing a band. It was an idea Barker already had in mind. His first inductee was a young neighborhood trumpeter he’d often heard practicing in a garage. He introduced himself to then-13-year-old Leroy Jones, who now enjoys a successful career. The Fairview Baptist Church Band soon blossomed from 10 members to 30 musicians who split up into three separate bands in order to satisfy all the gigs they were offered. Filled with now well-known musicians like drummer (then-trumpeter) Herlin Riley, trombonist Lucien Barbarin, trumpeter Gregg Stafford, Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen and more, the Fairview eventually spun off groups like the Hurricane and Dirty Dozen brass bands. This one little kids band began a revolution in brass band music that revitalized a tradition that continues to be realized today.
Many of the above named musicians along with others who were touched by the jazz man’s life will help celebrate the Barker Centennial performing around Danny’s early stomping grounds, the French Market. The stage at Dutch Alley (Dumaine and Decatur streets), dubbed the Danny Barker Pavilion, gets going at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, January 17, with guitarist Steve Masakowski, a favorite of Barker’s who was bequeathed one of his guitars. It closes at 4:30 p.m. with Stafford heading the Jazzhounds, a group once led by Barker. The music begins at 11 a.m. over at the French Market’s Griot Stage. The start times are the same on Sunday, January 18 with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band closing the Barker stage and ReBirth Brass Band, which came up under many of the musicians recruited by Barker, parading at 11 a.m.
The New Orleans Jazz National Park is also taking part in the commemoration with three performances starting at 11 a.m. Keeping the spirit going into the night, Snug Harbor presents Herlin Riley who pays tribute to Barker leading an all-star traditional jazz band on Saturday, January 17. On Sunday, January 18, guitarist/banjoist Detroit Brooks takes over at the Frenchmen Street club.
Even after the Fairview Brass band disbanded, Barker, who performed and traveled regularly with his band, kept an ear out for young musicians. He’d often head over to the musically rich Treme neighborhood to check out up-and-comers like trumpeters James Andrews and Kermit Ruffins and offer his sage advice and insight into music and life.
Despite his stature in the jazz community, Danny Barker didn’t consider himself to be the fastest or flashiest guitarist or banjoist. In his usual humble, humorous manner he chalked up his successful career saying, “They don’t want no geniuses, they want me.”
For the complete Danny Baker Centennial Celebration schedule go to www.jazzcent.com. Books by Barker include his autobiography, “A Life in Jazz,” “Buddy Bolden and the Last Days of Storyville” and “Bourbon Street Black.
This article originally ran in the January 12, 2009 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
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