Writing about George Buck in this issue brought back fond memories of Danny Barker and those heady days a decade ago when I first moved here, when everything was new and exciting. And Danny, who at that time was the main attraction at the Palm Court Cafe, was at the center of it all.

It was rare in those days for me to miss one of Danny’s performances. Soon after I’d walk into the Palm Court, he would play my favorite tune (Jelly Roll Morton’s “Winin’ Boy Blues”), and then tell the crowd that I was, indeed, “the great-great-grandson of the great Jelly Roll Morton. And folks, he wants to live that kind of life, that night people life, just like his great-great-grandfather. I don’t know if he’s going to make it, but he’s trying. Give him a hand.” Unbelievably, and inexplicably they would. It was great fun.

Once I accompanied Danny to the rehearsals for his recording with Dr. John, “Going Back to New Orleans.” They were held in Dr. John’s French Quarter home. Danny picked me up at the Palm Court and we drove over together. As we snaked through the French Quarter, Danny was pointing out all sorts of historical spots along the way. Not only pointing them out, but looking at them, too, with a complete disregard for the road. There were a number of near misses with other vehicles. When he tried to parallel park in an extremely tight spot, well, at that point I had had enough and wrested control of the wheel.

Often I would receive phone calls from him at odd hours, two and three in the morning. He was full of ideas for records and after expounding on these ideas at great length, he would always say “Think it’d be a hit?” As if he had something left to prove. The strangest one of these ideas was Danny Barker’s “Counting Song,” written and performed, he said, as a service to uneducated day laborers, “so that they won’t be cheated by the Man when they get paid.” It consisted of the counting from one to 100, and then backwards from 100 to one, all done up with boogie-woogie guitar accompaniment. He played it for me, stopping at fifteen. I suggested a boxed set (Volume One: 1 to 25).

At the time I was working on the Buck article, I was also moving. And as I once again sorted through a decade’s worth of detritus that I can’t bear to part with, I came upon an unmarked microcassette. Although I hadn’t seen it in maybe four years, I knew it was an old answering machine tape and I knew exactly what it contained. I put it into the player and after a long shrill tone was the following:

“Hello Jon, this is Danny Barker, calling you to remind you that maybe this week we’ll start working on the project. I got to check out the tunes, Indian tunes, some of my tunes, etcetera…hunh? So keep in touch. Catch me while my mind is in function because its deteriorating all the time. Catch ya. See ya. Call me when you get a chance.”

You can here him fumbling with the phone, a click and then another long shrill tone signaling the end of the message. The saddest part of that message was its prescience. He took ill again just a few days later. The project was never realized. The weakness in his voice reminded me of the last time I ever saw him. It was at the old New Orleans Music Hall in the Warehouse District. He was King of the Krewe du Vieux. I sat backstage with him for thirty minutes or so, and although he was extremely frail he was still talking about having a hit. The revelers asked him to play a number with the band. It was a bad idea, and he had to leave the stage mid-song. The whole affair angered me because it was obvious how fragile he was, he seemed a husk of the vibrant troubadour I had come to love and admire. For more than sixty years he had finished every gig…and the last one, well, he couldn’t do it. Afterwards, you could sense that he was hurt by the experience. When I left I shook his hand, “Keep in touch” he said, “See ya…” The next time I saw him he was laying in state at Gallier Hall.

Perhaps there was a strange aligning of the planets in the first couple of weeks of December because a day or two after finding the tape I got a phone call from one Matt Martinez. It turns out he and co-producer Eddie Kurtz are in the final stages of a documentary on Barker’s life and career that will be aired on WYES. He had met Danny and his wife Blue Lu, while working on another public television documentary, “Streetcar Stories.” And like so many of us he was taken with this man and wife. Helping to shed light on Danny and his contributions will be the likes of fellow musicians Milt Hinton and Doc Cheatham, historians Bruce Raeburn and Dan Morgenstern and many other individuals on whom Barker had an effect. Of course it will feature footage of Danny himself, who, as many of us know was never at a loss for words. And for an untold number of individuals like myself who formed a special bond with Danny, who reveled in him, and cherished his friendship, we have that to look forward to; a chance again to hear that stylish voice, and glimpse that wry smile. No air date is set yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

Jon Pult can be reached at the rather straightforward e-mail address, [email protected].