Since Chris Barber has retired from playing, one might expect that there would be no more “new” Barber CDs forthcoming, but that would be a wrong assumption as this 2020 issue shows. However, the play date, June 29, 1963, was quite a few years ago, the recording’s issue having simply been delayed until now.
Allan Gilmour, who recorded this concert as he did many others at the Nottingham Rhythm Club (most of them at the Dancing Slipper, the club’s usual venue), had each band’s permission to do so, the proviso being that these recordings were only for his personal use, as we learn from Paul Adams’ liner notes. After Gilmour’s demise in 2003, his recordings were acquired by Lake Records, and, with the permission of the surviving band members, they are being released by Adams.
The bill of fare is one that we might expect of a Barber concert. It runs the gamut of traditional jazz: spirituals, rags, blues, pop songs, rhythm and blues, numbers by Duke Ellington and Kurt Weill, even a couple by Barber himself, so we can say that almost all tastes are catered to. These compositions are delivered by a fine complement of musicians who do not put a foot—or should that be note?—wrong.
The incomparable Pat Halcox on trumpet, long Barber’s collaborator almost from the Barber band’s inception, provides that sure lead and plethora of ideas we associate with him, as his feature
