Chris Barber

Trombonist and bandleader Chris Barber spearheaded the Anglo-European trad jazz movement during the late '50s and early '60s and devoted 60 years to the endless celebration of old-fashioned music. But that's only part of his story. Even as he presided over that transatlantic response to the Dixieland revival, Barber went out of his way to make music with U.S. blues legends Big Bill Broonzy, Brother John Sellers, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Otis Spann, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, and Sonny Boy Williamson II. This cross-pollination dramatically affected the lives and careers of budding British rockers such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Eric Burdon, Jimmy Page, and John Mayall. Donald Christopher "Chris" Barber was born on April 17, 1930, in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, just north of London, England. After studying double bass and trombone at London's Guildhall School of Music, he assembled the King Oliver-inspired Barber New Orleans Band in 1949. In 1953 he co-founded a group called the Jazzmen with Ken Colyer, a cornetist who had just returned from New Orleans where he had worked with clarinetist George Lewis. In 1954 the group was rechristened Chris Barber's Jazz Band. Trumpeter Pat Halcox had begun what would amount to a 59-year commitment, banjoist/guitarist Lonnie Donegan now sang songs from the jazz, blues, and folk traditions, and Barber sometimes performed on the string bass while Beryl Bryden stroked a washboard. Donegan and Barber are credited with having ignited the mid-'50s U.K. skiffle movement with a 1955 cover of Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line" that went gold on both sides of the Atlantic. Another of the band's chart-topping hits was its interpretation of Sidney Bechet's "Petite Fleur," a feature for clarinetist Monty Sunshine that led to the...