Donald Christopher Barber was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist.
18 Facts About Chris Barber
2.
Chris Barber helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with "Petite Fleur" in 1959.
3.
Chris Barber provided an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner, and sponsored African-American blues musicians to visit Britain, making Barber a significant figure in launching the British rhythm and blues and "beat boom" of the 1960s.
4.
Chris Barber was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, on 17 April 1930.
5.
Chris Barber's father, Donald Barber, was an insurance statistician who a few years later became secretary of the Socialist League, while his mother was a headmistress.
6.
Chris Barber started learning the violin when he was seven years old.
7.
Chris Barber then spent three years at the Guildhall School of Music, and started playing music with friends he met there, including Alexis Korner.
8.
In 1950, Chris Barber formed the New Orleans Jazz Band, a non-professional group of up to eight musicians, including Korner on guitar and Chris Barber on double bass, to play both trad jazz and blues tunes.
9.
Chris Barber had trained as an actuary, but decided to leave his job in an insurance office in 1951, and the following year became a professional musician.
10.
Chris Barber stunned traditionalists in 1964 by introducing blues guitarist John Slaughter into the line up who played in the band until shortly before his death in 2010.
11.
In 1969, Chris Barber signed up to the progressive Marmalade Records label and released the album Battersea Rain Dance, featuring both McCartney and Brian Auger.
12.
Chris Barber recorded the album Under the Influence of Jazz with The London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble in 1991.
13.
In 1998 Chris Barber began to expand his band, partly so that he could play the music of the early Duke Ellington band, one of his favourites.
14.
Chris Barber published his autobiography Jazz Me Blues in 2014, with co-author Alyn Shipton.
15.
Chris Barber announced his decision to retire on 12 August 2019, after some 70 years of performing.
16.
Chris Barber was awarded an OBE in 1991 for services to music.
17.
Chris Barber was married four times: to dancer and singer Naida Lane; to the blues singer and band member Ottilie Patterson ; to Renate Hilbich, with whom he had two children; and finally to Kate Gray, who survived him.
18.
Chris Barber died on 2 March 2021, aged 90, having suffered from dementia.