Donald Christopher Barber OBE (17 April 1930 – 2 March 2021) was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with “Petite Fleur” in 1959, he helped the careers of many musicians. These included the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, “Rock Island Line”, while with Barber’s band. He provided an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner, and sponsored African-American blues musicians to visit Britain, making Barber a significant figure in launching the British rhythm and blues and “beat boom” of the 1960s.
Barber was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, on 17 April 1930. His father, Donald Barber, was an insurance statistician who a few years later became secretary of the Socialist League, while his mother was a headmistress. His parents were left-leaning, his father having been taught by John Maynard Keynes, while his mother became, in Barber’s words, “the only socialist mayor of Canterbury”. Barber started learning the violin when he was seven years old. He was educated at Hanley Castle Grammar School, near Malvern, Worcestershire, to the age of 15, and started to develop an interest in jazz. After the end of the war, he attended St Paul’s School in London, and began visiting clubs to hear jazz groups. He then spent three years at the Guildhall School of Music, and started playing music with friends he met there, including Alexis Korner.
In 1950, Barber formed the New Orleans Jazz Band, a non-professional group of up to eight musicians, including Korner on guitar and Barber on double bass, to play both trad jazz and blues tunes. He had trained as an actuary, but decided to leave his job in an insurance office in 1951, and the following year became a professional musician.
Barber and clarinetist Monty Sunshine formed a band in late 1952, with trumpeter Pat Halcox among others, began playing in London clubs, and accepted an offer to play in Denmark in early 1953. Simultaneously, it was found that Halcox would be unable to travel but that Ken Colyer, who had been visiting New Orleans, was available. Colyer joined the band, which then took the name Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen. The group also included Donegan, Jim Bray (bass), Ron Bowden (drums) and Barber on trombone. In April 1953 the band made its debut in Copenhagen, Denmark.
There Chris Albertson recorded several sides for the new Danish Storyville label, including some featuring only Sunshine (clarinet), Donegan (banjo) and Barber (bass) as the Monty Sunshine Trio. The bands played Dixieland jazz, and later ragtime, swing, blues and R&B. Pat Halcox returned on trumpet in 1954 when Colyer moved on after musical and personal differences with both Barber and Donegan, and the band became “The Chris Barber Band”.
The band’s first recording session in 1954 produced the LP New Orleans Joys, and included “Rock Island Line”, performed by Donegan. When released as a single under Donegan’s name, it became a hit, launching Donegan’s solo career and the British skiffle boom.[10] The Barber band recorded several In Concert LPs during the 1950s, regarded by critic Richie Unterberger as “captur[ing] the early Barber band in its prime…. [T]here’s a certain crispness and liveliness to both the acoustics and the performances that make this in some ways preferable to their rather starchier studio recordings of the same era.”
In 1959, the band’s October 1956 recording of Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur”, a clarinet solo by Monty Sunshine with Dick Smith on bass, Ron Bowden on drums and Dick Bishop on guitar, spent twenty-four weeks in the UK Singles Charts, making it to No. 3 and selling over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. After 1959, Barber toured the United States several times (where “Petite Fleur” charted at #5).
Barber was married four times. His second marriage, to Ottilie Patterson, lasted from 1959 until their divorce in 1983. He subsequently had two children during his third marriage.
Barber died on 2 March 2021. He was 90 and had suffered from dementia (wikipedia)
And are two songs from his very early days … two songs (taken from a German single) that are among his early classics … and they are still pretty good … till today !
Personnel:
Chris Barber (trombone, bass on 02.)
Monty Sunshine (clarinet)
+
Dick Bishop (guitar on 01.)
Ron Bowden (drums on 01.)
Lonnie Donegan (banjo on 02.)
Dick Smith (bass on 01.)
The US edition:
Tracklist:
01. A Petite Fleur (recorded 1956) (Little Flower) (Bechet) 2.44
02. Wild Cat Blues (recorded 1955) (Williams/Waller) 2.58
More from Chris Barber:
In 1983 the famous London music venue the Marquee celebrated its silver jubilee. One of the founders in 1958 (it was then in Oxford Street, now situated in Wardour Street) was Chris Barber; so it was fitting that he should do something special with his Jazz & Blues Band to mark the occasion. He therefore asked well known New Orleans musician Mac Rebennack, better known as Doctor John, to tour again with his band and to give two special concerts at the Marquee which would be recorded for future audio and video release; the recordings being made on the second night.
during the 25th anniversary of London’s famous Marquee Club. It features the NOLa legend Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) playing on stage with British band leader and trombonist Chris Barber and his “Jazz and Blues Band”. Dr. John starts it off with a solo and then the band gets a shot and then they combine efforts – with solos throughout). There are 10 numbers, with some running almost 1o minutes.
In his notes on the back of the LP cover, Chris Barber wrote: “Ragtime is a musical idiom that was popular between 1890 and 1920 (having no connotation whatsoever with a bandleader named Alexander!). It had a very great influence on jazz development but has been sadly neglected in recent years…. We had the honour of visiting New Orleans to give a concert in 1959, and we were fortunate to find a collection of original Ragtime sheet music at Bill Russell’s little shop in the French Quarter, thus enabling us at last to prepare and record some authentic Ragtime-style jazz. All the numbers on this LP except Georgia Cakewalk and St. George’s Rag come from this collection…. The descriptions of the tunes, the illustration and the panel underneath the title all taken from the original Stark Publishing Co. sheet music, as is the cover of Elite Syncopations”.
The Skiffle Sessions – Live In Belfast 1998 is a live album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber, released in 2000 (see 2000 in music). Lonnie Donegan had played with the Chris Barber Jazz Band when he had his first hit with “Rock Island Line”/”John Henry” in 1955. He had been a childhood influence on Van Morrison, who had first performed in his own skiffle band with schoolmates when he was twelve years old in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This was Donegan’s first album in twenty years, reviving his career until his death in 2002.
Taken from the original liner notes:
This is a very nice radio show that Mark Knopfler did for Chris Barber in his radio show the Jazz Diaries. They recorded four songs exclusively for this show, two instrumentals and two with vocals.
None of the tracks on Drat That Fratle Rat used the complete band of the time, but instead
Donald Christopher ‘Chris’ Barber (born 17 April 1930) is a British jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit, he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, “Rock Island Line”, while with Chris Barber’s band. His providing an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner makes Barber a significant figure in the British rhythm and blues and “beat boom” of the 1960s.
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