Legendary Jazz Man Danny Barker Dies
03-14-1994 Times Picayune

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Danny Barker, a musician, historian and humorist who played
with many of the seminal figures of jazz and left a lasting
legacy on New Orleans music, died Sunday of cancer at his home.
He was 85. Barker rose from playing music on New Orleans
streets in a makeshift "spasm" band called the Boozan Kings to
a distinguished career playing with a who's who of jazz: Jelly
Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Sidney Bechet,
James P. Johnson, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Dexter
Gordon. He was fond of saying that since he had begun playing
music for tips as a teen-ager, "I was never an amateur." At 20,
he followed his uncle, bandleader Paul Barbarin, to New York.
He remained there as a journeyman musician for 35 years. It was
in New York that Barker began a decade-long association with
Morton, a fellow New Orleans expatriate who is considered the
first great jazz composer. Morton "never called me nothing but
Hometown as long as I known him," Barker once said. He knew my
name, but he called me Hometown. He felt a feeling for me,
'cause I was a little catfish in a sea of sharks." Barker
considered himself an entertainer more than a stellar musician.
His strength was making an audience smile with innuendo-laced
songs while strumming a guitar or a six-string banjo. But it
was backing up his wife of 64 years, singer Blue Lu Barker,
that Barker achieved some of his greatest renown in the late
1930s. Their recordings were too risque to become hits, but
they remain classics. Barker's songwriting talents were such
that some stars of the day, including Nat "King" Cole and
Johnny Mercer, recorded his "Save the Bones For Henry Jones."
Barker was self-deprecating about his own abilities compared
with the flashy young guitarists who came after him. But he
also was proud of his wide knowledge of popular song and
solidity as a rhythm section accompanist. He could play
"extremely subtly on the guitar," jazz historian Richard B.
Allen said. ""In an apartment or a home he could show you some
of the soft things. Danny could play those sweet love songs
from the '20s and '30s - play these beautiful harmonics that
you just don't get in a nightclub atmosphere. It's a shame that
was never captured on a recording." In the 1940s, Barker was a
featured artist on the nationally broadcast "This Is Jazz"
radio program. His performances helped to rekindle interest in
traditional jazz after the music had gone out of style. After
returning to New Orleans, Barker made perhaps his greatest
contribution to jazz: He helped revive the dying brass band
tradition by starting the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band in
the 1970s. Through its ranks passed many of the play ers who
today are the most outspoken advocates for the traditional New
Orleans sound, including Lucian Barbarin, Greg Stafford, Leroy
Jones and Michael White. Yet he accepted changes in the music
easily. "Nobody wants to do what their grandparents did,"
Barker said in 1993. "You can't expect youngsters to play
'Didn't He Ramble' and so on." To Barker, as long as there are
brass bands in which young people can learn to play, jazz will
take care of itself. "I wouldn't fret the least bit about this
music dying out," he said. "People love a parade. There's
always going to be 'When the Saints Go Marching In.' " A
quintessential jazz man, Barker had a strut in his step, and
hepcat expressions such as "You dig?" and "monkeyshine"
peppered his speech long after they fell from common use. He
often stood up for common people, pointing out that jazz
developed as a pressure valve for African-Americans who "caught
hell the rest of their lives." In recent years, Barker was a
familiar sight around New Orleans. He played at private events
and he could be heard weekly at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe in the
French Quarter until illness curtailed his activities in
January. His last performance was at Preservation Hall on New
Year's Eve. Barker made guest appearances on several albums,
including a Jelly Roll Morton tribute by the Dirty Dozen Brass
Band. In 1993, Barker capped his recording career with "Save
the Bones," a collection of solo performances released on
Orleans Records. In 1991, he was named a Master of Jazz by the
National Endowment for the Arts. Two years later, he was
inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame. He wrote an
autobiography, "A Life In Jazz," and a study of New Orleans
music, "Bourbon Street Black." As a historian, Barker "had a
real knack for capturing the flavor of music and musicians and
the people around it," said Allen, the dean of New Orleans jazz
scholars. "When he's in top form, he's my favorite writer for
writing about jazz." Barker is survived by his wife; their
daughter, Sylvia Barker; and a grand son. Funeral arrangements
are incomplete.