Hi All, another week and another blog from Geoff.
Yesterday we heard the sad news that Chris Barber had died at the age of 90. Much has already been written about him, so all I am going to do is leave a link for you to follow
https://www.jazzwise.com/news/article/chris-barber-17-april-1930-2-march-2021
but then I can tell you why, like many who have passed away in recent years, Chris Barber was important in my jazz education.
Like many people born before WW2, the radio played much
swing and jazz during my early years. We did have a wind up gramophone in our
air raid shelter, and apart from “Songs of the Western Front” we did have some
swing type records from before the war. The Dorsey Brothers Orchestra for one. At
the wars end, my interest in jazz type music widened slightly. I can remember
buying new 78’s. Sid Phillips and “Clarinet Marmalade” being one and also a
couple of Jo Daniels and His Hot Shot sides too. I became aware of the Ken
Colyer Band in about 1953 which was really the Chris Barber Band with a
different trumpet player.
Then in 1954 The Chris Barber Band brought out a
famous 10” LP with Pat Halcox in place of Ken Colyer.
By then we had the ability at my home in Hammersmith to play LP’s, but they were expensive, and for my pocket money I still bought some 78’s. I remember my first real contact with Chris Barber was in 1954 when I went in to Doug Dobells Record Shop at 77 Charing Cross Road and bought the 78 of “Chimes Blues” almost direct from Mr Barber himself, and he signed it on the tax stamp!!
My interest was fired, and I started to play the trumpet along to their records. My interest in other jazz grew, Humph of course, with Wally Fawkes in these days, and with more LP’s and with school friends we all found Buck Clayton, Duke Ellington and many many more. My understanding ballooned!
But it was the Chris Barber Band that I saw every Wednesday. By now I was an Apprentice at CAV Ltd in Action, and every Wednesday after work I would take the trolley bus to Southall and “The White Hart” for that was where the Chris Barber Band had its regular sessions. Before “Rock Island Line” became a hit there was Lonnie Donegan, the banjo player, doing his thing after the interval. Skiffle had arrived!!
The Barber Band then introduced us all to all kinds of American Blues singers, some they even imported so that we could see and hear them live for ourselves. Champion Jack Dupree billed as “Blues from the Gutter”!
“The White Hart” had its own blues singer, that young school teacher Ottile Patterson would sing the occasional Bessie Smith song, and then go back to marking homework on a table beside the bandstand. How could that slim lady become Bessie Smith, but somehow she did!
We did see Ottilie in a new light once at a Hammersmith Town Hall concert that had Chris Barbers Band together with Acker Bilks Band.
Ackers band were on first, and many of his fans danced, the girls being dressed in dresses made out of sacks! All very “alternative”.
During the Barber set Ottilie came on stage in a very long stylish black dress with a very full swirly skirt, so long in fact that it covered her shoes. As the music got going she lifted her skirt high enough for us all to see full length red leather boots. We had never seen the like before, wow!
My life continued, and my ability to attend live jazz diminished as married life and children took over. But FM radio came to my aid, and in 1968 I can remember listening to a weeknight broadcast of The Chris Barber Band playing a kind of musical fusion, with a blues guitar being added to the mix. I had heard a performance of the music from the record “Battersea Rain Dance” with the addition of guitarist John Slaughter!
Finally another link, have a go at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpvsQSOPuxc&t=37s
All 1 hour of it! The BIG CB Band in 2005
More next week, do tell others of the blog.
Geoff C
octogeoff@outlook.com
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