[Dixielandjazz] Carl Barriteau

[Marek Boym]

Thanks, Steve.
Strange that I have never before heard of him.  I have a collection of
pre-war British swing, and have alway admired Kenny Baker.

At the 1984 Edinburgh festival, he played with a rather lethargic
European big band.  But his solos seemd to electrify the band and put
a new life into it.

At an international jam session at the same festival, after a
particularly exhilarating Kenny Baker solo, Warren Vache bowed to him
in appreciation; OK, it was a joke, but a telling one.

Cheers
On 21/01/2010, Stephen G Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Dear Marek: (who asked about Carl Barriteau)
>
> Here is Carl Barriteau's obit, by Steve Voce
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
> August 31, 1998
> Obituary: Carl Barriteau
> By Steve Voce
> DURING THE years of the Swing Era, most European clarinet players tried to
> model their playing on that of Benny Goodman. Carl Barriteau, who had come
> to Britain from Trinidad in 1937, based his style instead on that of
> Goodman's perceived rival Artie Shaw. With hindsight it is obvious that
> Shaw's playing was more sophisticated and harmonically more adventurous than
> Goodman's.
>
> It's a fair reflection of Barriteau's outstanding ability that he was able
> to cope convincingly with his idol's style. Barriteau led the band of stars
> that recorded the famous First English Public Jam Session in London in
> November 1941. Sure enough, the Shaw influence is very obvious, but close
> listening reveals that where Shaw was precise and immaculate in some of his
> uniquely complex runs on the instrument, Barriteau cleverly skidded over the
> points where such ambitious work was required.
>
> None the less it was he and the newly emerged trumpet star Kenny Baker who
> dominated the concert and, like the trombonist George Chisholm, each easily
> dominated the English scene on his instrument.
>
> Barriteau spent his early years in Maracaibo, Venezuela, before being taught
> to play the tenor horn at the Belmont Orphanage in Trinidad. He played in
> the Trinidad Constabulary Band for some years and during this time switched
> to clarinet, showing his outstanding skills on the instrument when he worked
> with Bert McLean's Jazz Hounds and with another of the island's leading jazz
> groups, the Williams Brothers' Blue Rhythm Band.
>
> In 1937 Barriteau moved to Britain and joined the West Indian Swing Band
> band led by Ken "Snake Hips" Johnson, a jazz trumpeter with whom he toured
> variety halls and played night club bookings. They made several recordings
> including a successful version of "Tuxedo Junction" (1940). Late 1939 the
> band began a residency at the Cafe de Paris in London. The band was playing
> there when the building was bombed during an air raid in March 1941. Johnson
> was killed and Barriteau was badly injured.
>
> He made a good recovery and went on to work as a featured soloist with a
> series of wartime bands including those led by Lew Stone, Ambrose, Chappie
> D'Amato, Eric Winstone and Joe Loss. From 1942 he played regularly at the
> weekly Sunday jam sessions held in London at the Feldman Club at 100 Oxford
> Street. Barriteau formed his own West Indian Dance Orchestra which worked
> and broadcast from London. He made a double-sided recording of Artie Shaw's
> Concerto for Clarinet that displayed his great agility on the instrument.
> His playing here came closer to Shaw's than anyone else's had.
>
> Barriteau spent the rest of the war years touring with the band and
> recording for the Decca label. As the war ended took the band on a tour to
> play for British forces in Europe. He took the band into the Embassy Club in
> London. He was the star of the Melody Maker's 1947 "Jazz Rally" and the
> 78rpm records of the concerts outsold any other British jazz records of the
> time.
>
> In 1949 he began a two-year residency at the Eldorado Ballroom in Leith,
> Scotland. This may not have been financially rewarding: a visitor to
> Barriteau's flat in the town remembers that he was loathe to leave it as he
> benefited from a free gas supply. He had modified the gas meter so that he
> could put a shilling in the slot and then, when it had been credited, could
> persuade the meter to regurgitate the coin.
>
> Returning south in 1951 he joined Cyril Stapleton's band for a year. He
> worked as a soloist and with his own band, which he re-formed as needed, and
> again toured Europe, North Africa and South East Asia, entertaining American
> troops there between 1958 and 1966. During this time he worked as a double
> act with the singer Mae Cooper and also led his band for a tour with the
> Platters vocal group.
>
> He emigrated to Australia in 1970, became an Australian citizen and settled
> in Sydney, using this as a base for widespread touring throughout
> Australasia and the Orient.
>
> Steve Voce
>
> Carl Barriteau, clarinet and saxophone player and bandleader: born Trinidad
> 7 February 1914; died Sydney, Australia 24 August 1998.