In the first article about Chris Barber we took a look at his childhood and teenage years. This time we take a look at his first steps into the music business and his first band, the New Orleans Jazz Band.
Chris Barber started his first band in 1948 after meeting clarinet player Alex Revell in Dobell’s record store. At this record store many jazz fans gathered to hang out and talk about jazz, and this is where Chris and Alex become friends and form a band together. Because Chris’ mother Hettie is the head of the King Alfred School, the band can rehearse there after school hours, without bothering anybody. At Dobell’s record store Chris and Alex meet cornet player Hugh Middleton and he joins the band. Banjo player Ferdie Favager later joins the band and by October 1949 they believe that they are ready to record their music. They are still an amateur band, mostly rehearsing and playing a few shows now and then. By now the band had expanded to five members: Chris Barber (trombone), Alex Revell (clarinet), Hugh Middleton (cornet), Ferdie Favager (banjo) and Johnny Westwood (drums). Their first recording session takes place at the Modern Messages Studio at Piccadilly Arcade. Not long after the recording session Hugh Middleton is called up for his military service and has to leave the band, he is replaced by Ben Cohen. In 1950 drummer Johnny Westwood also left the band and was replaced by Brian Lawes.
Chris is not only playing with his own band but also still goes to clubs to listen to other bands and when he first hears The Crane River Jazz Band, he is an instant fan. When The Crane’s introduced a breakdown band, Chris wanted his own breakdown band and play some blues songs in the middle of their set. Chris had met this weird guy in Dobell’s who loved blues music and he asked Alexis Korner to join his breakdown band. Alexis plays electric guitar but doesn’t own an amplifier so nobody could really hear him but he looked cool on stage and knew a lot about blues music. The bass player of this breakdown group is Brylo Ford but he doesn’t always have time to play with the band, so Chris borrows Brylo’s double-bass from time to time to fill in for him. With some practice Chris becomes a fine double bass player. The breakdown group is completed with banjo player Ferdie Favager and drummer Brian Lawes, who were already in the band.
They name the band the New Orleans Jazz Band and they play more and more shows, even getting a regular gig on Saturday morning at Dobell’s record store. On the weekends the band sometimes rents a van to play in other parts of England. In November 1950 the New Orleans Jazz Band returned to the recording studio, this time in a studio in Denmark Street, to record a few songs. Somewhere in the first few months of 1951 Alexis Korner left the band and was not replaced because you didn’t need an electric guitar you couldn’t hear during the live shows.
Alexis Korner: “Nobody could ever hear me in the band, but they all convinced themselves they could feel me. We used to do a half-hour set of R&B - ‘race blues’ it was called then - a piano (Dave Stevens), guitar (Alexis Korner), bass (Chris Barber), drums (Brian Lawes) set-up - like the Tampa Red and Bill Broonzy Chicago sessions on Bluebird in the late thirties and early forties. I was given the mike and I used to do single string and people would say, ‘What’s that funny stuff you played in the middle.’”
Chris now spends so much time with his band playing and rehearsing that he failed the company exam he had to take twice in a row and got fired. Like his father Chris loves maths and numbers but there is nothing better than playing with a band in front of an audience. His father, Donald Barber, thinks that if his son wants to be a professional musician then he should study music. If Chris can get into a music school then Donald will pay for his education. Chris applies for a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, playing the trombone. The school is more than happy to have him because there are not many brass players in the school. Chris also has to choose a second instrument and wants to choose violin but the school is full of violinists so he picks the double bass instead. Because Chris doesn’t own a double bass he can borough one from school. Chris completed his 3 year study (from 1951 to 1954) there, fully paid for by his father.
Just before going back to school Chris and the New Orleans Jazz Band take a vacation together to the Isle of Wight. All band members bring their own instrument, except drummer Brian Lawes, who brings a washboard instead. There at the Norton Grange Chalet Hotel they again record a few songs, with Chris now playing bass in the breakdown band.
Back from their vacation they get a new regular gig playing on Tuesday evening and Sunday afternoon at The Lincoln Gardens club, where The Crane River Jazz Band already plays on Monday evenings. Next to their regular gig the band still goes north to play there in clubs and ballroom halls, where young people come to dance. Slowly they build an audience and get some attention from the press, but are mostly seen as the second band playing this kind of music, the first one being the Crane River Jazz Band. But unlike the Crane’s The New Orleans Jazz Band gets invited to play on the new BBC radio show ‘Jazz Club’, the first program to play jazz records on the BBC radio. Twice they played on Saturday evening on this live radio show, which aired between 18:30 and 19:30.
Despite all their success The New Orleans Jazz Band is still an amateur band and all the bandmembers have jobs and girlfriends and don’t have time to rehearse or play every night. This frustrates Chris, more now that he has decided to study music and really become a professional musician. He was spending all his time on music, when he wasn’t playing he was listening to music or reading books and magazines about music. Through a neighbour Chris could now get records straight from America and his collection grew rapidly, owning many records that were not released in the UK. He loved the old jazz and blues records and wanted to spread this music but the other members of the New Orleans Jazz Band just played for fun. Chris wanted to make a career out of it.
In 1952 the New Orleans Jazz Band lost their regular gig playing the Lincoln Gardens club but still played shows during the weekend, but it seemed they were running out of steam. Then Chris met a guy named Tony Donegan, who can play guitar, sing and has his own band but wants to play more gigs. Tony Donegan is ambitious, just like Chris and the two hit it off right away.