Jazz Legend Barker To Get Somber Send-Off
03-16-1994 Times Picayune

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Before he died Sunday, New Orleans jazz legend Danny Barker
told friends he didn't want a jazz funeral. The man who did
more than most to nurture the city's traditions had seen the
once-somber processions degenerate into raucous street parties,
and that's not how he wanted to be buried.

"He was disappointed at the way second-liners cut up," said
trumpeter Gregg Stafford, who is organizing the music for
Barker's funeral rites. "He just didn't want his funeral to
turn into a fiasco."

Instead of a private family funeral, Barker is being given full
honors. His body will lie in state at Gallier Hall from 3 to 11
p.m. today, with a wake beginning at 8. On Thursday, the
funeral will begin at 1 p.m. at St. Raymond Church, 3738 Paris
Ave.

Anticipating expectations of a jazz funeral, Stafford said he
convinced Barker's widow, Blue Lu Barker, to let him organize
one with the promise that he will make it appropriately
mournful - with none of the uptempo music that tends to excite
a crowd. It will assemble after the funeral at the corner of
North Claiborne and Ursulines avenues and follow the hearse
down Claiborne to St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 at Claiborne and
Bienville, where Barker's body will be placed in his family's
tomb.

"My feeling is that the music controls the crowd," Stafford
said. "I proposed to Miss Lu that I'll keep the music as
traditional as it's supposed to be - just dirges and hymns."

Nina Buck, owner of the Palm Court Jazz Cafe, where Barker
often performed, said Barker didn't want his funeral to be a
party.

"It's not that he's against the music," she said. "I remember
once he was asked to pose for pictures in a cemetery and he
refused. He said a cemetery is not a film set, it's a place for
respect for the dead. He had that kind of code."

Stafford said he is inviting musicians from around the city to
form the funeral band. They will be required to wear the
traditional black suit and black five-point hat "because that's
what Danny stood for - preserving the culture."

Stafford acknowledged that it would be nearly impossible for
the band to leave St. Louis No. 2 without breaking into a
vivacious strut.

"It depends on the attitude of the crowd," he said. "If the
people are not respectful, jumping on top of the hearse and all
of that, we won't have all that foolishness."