[Dixielandjazz] chris Barber

[Pat Ladd]

Saw  the Chris Barber Band on Saturday night.

A ten piece is not the sort of set up with which we usually associate Chris but it was a great sound. The musicianship was first class, including our own Bert Braadsma  virtuoso performance of Wildcat Blues.

A great night to which unfortunately only a couple of hundred turned up. The venue suffers from the advertising point of view as it is just in the next county and the newspaper coverage stop at the border. Consequently  I was able to tell a few friends about the concert and they all turned up but I am sure others would have attended had they known about it.
Its a pity as this particular theatre, an ex cinema, puts on some good stuff but they are a couple of miles inside  Somerset while I am about eight miles inside Wiltshire. I hear about bookings because | am on the mailing list . 

Chris Barber is 84, a couple of months older than me and the energy he puts into every show is incredible. I am glad I don`t have to work that hard. Not content with playing a full set Chris was in the foyer, selling CDs and pressing the flesh in before the show, during the interval and afterwards.
Long may he continue. Barber and Acker Bilk are the only band leaders left from the glory days of the Great Jazz Revival. Acker has been very ill and blows very gently these days, and not too often. He is still a character on stage though. Only Chris still working full time.

Pat