January 13th, 2009 – Danny Barker Centennial

What does 100 years of one man's life and legacy mean? America and it's music has already witnessed the centennials of three significant “Immortals.” Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie all arrived on Earth within a span of five years, just at the dawning of a new mass produced century. Their music, respectively and collectively has changed the world. Forever will their lives be represented in their work and words – their sounds and images and thoughts resonating for generations of freedom seekers to come.

A central tenet in Jazz is the permission of one's individuality within the whole. The life of Danny Barker is unique in the history of our music. It is challenging to place a descriptive in front of “unique” - from the Francais, it means one of a kind. In this new year, this new dawn, and this new potential, let us bring to our consciousness Daniel Moses Barker, a unique man who was born in the French Quarter, New Orleans, at 1027 Chartres Street – January 13th, 1909.

For one overview of his life, you can read a previous post – which also includes a Youtube link. The unique opportunity that I offer here is a chance to study this man from his own words, his own voice, his own view. Danny was a widely learned man; his lessons are from the pages of a life in jazz. Danny sums up his journey's motivations. “In my case I learned early that I would never see the inside of a college. I also found out that if I wanted to go places with a minimum of education, the way involved the learning of a musical instrument.” Mr. Barker's education was completed on March 13th, 1994 when he died in his home at 1277 Sere Street, New Orleans.

Some twenty years earlier, Mr. Barker was teaching a class at Xavier University – Afro-American Music History. A diligent researcher in his own right, Danny decides to bring a cassette recorder to class. From his archives, these tapes came into my possession shortly before August 29th, 2005. (They survive today because they were in my home, upstairs – the cardboard file box covered with a plastic sheet.)

It is with great honor and pleasure that I launch this series: Afro-American Music 101- The Danny Barker Lectures. Each Tuesday morning you will find here an audio clip(s) of Mr. Barker interacting with a class of undergraduate students from Xavier; some are music majors – some not. Some are Baptist, some A.M.E. though most are Catholic. It's safe to say that these young people come from “good homes” and represent the strong values that were essential for survival for blacks in New Orleans for the many generations which preceded their own time. These students are some of the first college graduates who never actually saw a FOR COLORED sign... or only would have a small child's image of such.

The exact date of some of the clips is unknown. (DB didn't employ a set manner of notation for each cassette.) Nevertheless the time period is from the Fall of 1975 thru the Fall of 1977 – thus covering the period when America celebrated its Bi-centennial year. Thus the quintessential Jazzman... the wise slick old Journeyman... the self-described: “American citizen first and an American Negro always” has the unique opportunity to instruct.

In our first lesson, Mr. Barker speaks of the slavery days. From a cassette notated as: Jan. Eve 1st (possibly the first evening session of the semester,) this:

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It's compelling to me how daring Danny is in his description of the day-to-day existence of the slave. He places the student into the context of a young man just beginning to have his own sexual attractions; thus how basic liberties were not even a possibility as in: “Your whole life was regulated to doing what the people said, unless you could steal a little sneak.”

A master storyteller, Danny knows well the command from on high: Keep'em laughing! In this same session, Mr. Barker tells a tale from his then recent past when he worked gigs on the steamboat, the Delta Queen. He begins with the question: “How many of you all have never been on a plantation?” He waits, and waits while the student ponders such an inquiry. I pose to this story the title: You Can't Get Them Out Here No More.

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Laughin' all the way.

Peace & Pops,
Esquizito
Maison Musique, New Orleans
esquizito.com
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