The Uptown Lowdown Jazz Band is one of only about a half-dozen bands that can say they have been playing traditional jazz festivals for more than 40 years. That streak came to an abrupt end in February at the Seaside, Oregon, festival with the announcement that the band’s days on the festival trail are over. Leader Bert Barr has been dealing with health issues of late which make travel difficult. However, he and wife Rose Marie will continue to perform as a duo in and around the Seattle area.
The band had its start back in late 1971 up in the Pacific Northwest and consistently remained true to the West Coast revival style of the Lu Watters and Turk Murphy bands. Bert played in school bands, got his first paying job in a group called “the Jazz Beaus,” playing three nights a week for $20 a man. Bert attended Vallejo Junior College for two years and then transferred to the University of Oregon where he majored in music.
In 1969, the Army required his services, and he was assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington and then on to Vietnam where he led a Dixie band known as the Hot Rats that played around the base in Saigon. “It got us out of filling sandbags,” Bert recalled with a smile.
1971 Beginning
Discharged in 1971, he moved to Seattle. Finding no available teaching jobs, he spent the next nine years working in a music store selling pianos and organs. But 1971 was the year
