[Dixielandjazz] Bill Barber obituary NYTimes

[Dan Augustine]

     Forwarded from the Tuba-Euphonium mailing-list.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>To: TubaEuph at yahoogroups.com
>From: "Jenny (Diva)" <TubaDiva at aol.com>
>Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:52:18 -0000
>Subject: [TubaEuph] Bill Barber obituary NYTimes
>
>(Registration required to see it on the NYTimes site.)
>
>June 29, 2007
>
>Bill Barber, Who Brought the Tuba to Famed Jazz Sessions, Is Dead at 87
>By PETER KEEPNEWS
>Bill Barber, one of the first musicians to play modern jazz on the
>tuba, died on June 18 in Bronxville, N.Y. He was 87.
>
>The cause was heart failure, said his daughter, Jill Barber Segarra.
>
>Mr. Barber performed or recorded with Miles Davis, John Coltrane,
>Stan Getz and other leading modernists in the course of a jazz career
>that began in 1947, when he joined the pianist Claude Thornhill's
>influential and adventurous big band.
>
>John William Barber was born on May 21, 1920, in Hornell, N.Y., near
>Rochester. He began playing tuba in high school and later studied at
>the Juilliard School and performed with an Army band.
>
>After his discharge from the Army in 1945, he settled in Kansas City,
>Mo., where he played with the Kansas City Philharmonic. A few years
>later he moved to New York, where he joined the Thornhill band and,
>in 1949 and 1950, participated in a series of historic recordings led
>by Miles Davis.
>
>Those sessions, featuring a nine-piece band that played intricate,
>understated arrangements by, among others, Gil Evans, who had also
>written for Thornhill, came to be seen as a precursor to the cool
>jazz movement of the 1950s. They were later reissued on LP as "Birth
>of the Cool." Mr. Barber's association with Davis and Evans continued
>when the two teamed up again in the late 1950s for the acclaimed big-
>band albums "Miles Ahead," "Sketches of Spain" and "Porgy and Bess."
>He can be heard on those and other noteworthy recordings, including
>Coltrane's only big-band album, "Africa/Brass."
>
>But despite those credits, Mr. Barber found playing jazz on the tuba
>a difficult way to make a living. He later received a master's degree
>from the Manhattan School of Music and became a high school music
>teacher in Copiague, N.Y. He continued to perform, most prominently
>with the Goldman Band, and in 1992 he recorded and toured with a
>nonet led by Gerry Mulligan that revisited the "Birth of the Cool"
>repertory.
>
>In addition to his daughter, of Bronxville, he is survived by his
>wife, Dora; two sons, John, of Covington, R.I., and William, of
>Manhattan; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
>
>=====
>He had a lot to do with what made me a tuba player in the first
>place; like so many people, "Porgy and Bess" totally blew me away and
>opened me up to what you could do besides all the mundane stuff I had
>heard before. It truly was the "eureka!" moment that changed my life;
>that's the power of really good music, that it can do that.  I told
>Bill it was his fault I became a tuba player. 
>
>I was privileged to know Bill Barber. He was as great a human being
>as he was a musician and I adored him as much as I admired him.  I
>last heard him play a few years ago at the Knitting Factory, just
>himself and a piano player.  He swung greatly and played beautifully
>and he was easily the best thing on the entire program. (Apologies to
>Marcus and Toby and Ron, no offense meant.  But.)
>
>My condolences to his family, very nice people who were always
>gracious and kind to hero-worshipping tuba players in general and
>this tuba player in particular. 
>
>Jenny
>your humble TubaDiva

-- 
**--------------------------------------------------------------------**
**  Dan Augustine  --  Austin, Texas  --  ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
**    "There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom."   
**              -- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)                         
**--------------------------------------------------------------------**