(Preview by Russell).
The year is 1949. A young trombone player (and sometime bass
player) hit the road playing one nighters up and down the land. Fast forward a
mere sixty five years and Chris Barber is still at it. The tour bus has
millions of miles on the clock, the service stations of the European road
network familiar markers along the way, is it simply a matter of time before
Barber calls it a day?
Ken Colyer kick-started Barber’s big time career, then, in
1953 they parted company, Colyer at the wheel of the revivalist bandwagon,
Barber the restless pioneer fusing a passion for New Orleans jazz with an entrepreneurial
spirit bringing American blues giants to the UK. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee
and Muddy Waters performed in concert halls and on university campuses. The
so-called ‘British Blues Boom’ would
have looked somewhat different but for Barber.
Trumpeter Pat Halcox clocked-up fifty four years service with
Barber (1954-2008) – surely something of a record for a British sideman? The
new kid on the block – Amy Roberts (reeds) – joined the band in 2011 as an
undergraduate at the Royal Northern College of Music and has Halcox’s record in
her sights…in the year 2065!
Barber’s current band, the eleven piece ‘Big Chris Barber
Band’ is named so as not to confuse with any notion of a Chris Barber Big Band.
What you get is King Oliver, the blues, perhaps a trace of skiffle and
Ellingtonia.
The year is 2014 and the octogenarian Chris Barber shows no
signs of slowing down. Retirement probably hasn’t crossed Barber’s mind and
that is to our advantage. Catch
the great man on Thursday
11th December in the intimate surroundings of Hall Two
at Sage Gateshead . Contact the box office for details: 0191
443 4661.
Russell.
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