UPDATE: Out of an abundance of caution due to a surge in COVID-19 cases from the Omicron variant, on December 30 it was announced that the Danny Barker Banjo and Guitar Festival has been postponed until March 16—19 at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. OffBeat will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available.
Named in honor of the late jazz legend Danny Barker, the eighth-annual festival is set for a four-day run from Wednesday, March 16, through Saturday, January 19, and will offer a mix of live performances, interviews and panel discussions at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Avenue. Admission is $15 per day.
A patron party kicks off festivities on the evening of March 16 at The Terrell House Bed and Breakfast, 1441 Magazine Street, with live music, hors d’oeuvres, drinks and a silent auction. Tickets are $45 individual, $75 per couple. A Danny Barker Birthday Bash will be held at Snug Harbor, on Thursday, March 17, with shows at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. featuring 2022 festival special guest artist Catherine Russell and an all-star band led by Dr. Michael White. Tickets may be purchased at snugjazz.com.
Russell and White will also appear with the Danny Barker Tribute Band in the third-floor performance center at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. Russell also be joined by banjoist, guitarist and vocalist Don Vappie for a master class on jazz singing and the contributions of Danny and Blu Lu Barker to the craft, which will be open to the public at the University of New Orleans.
The 2022 festival will also honor two stalwarts of New Orleans music and culture with deep connections to Danny Barker’s legacy—Hot 8 Brass Band cofounder and sousaphonist Bennie Pete and jazz historian Don Marquis—both of whom died in 2021. The festival will also present a special screening of the acclaimed documentary City of a Million Dreams at the New Orleans Jazz Museum; admission is $10. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with director Jason Berry and three men featured prominently in the film: Fred Johnson, Gregg Stafford and White.
The mission of the festival is to showcase and highlight the many contributions and accomplishments of Barker, musician, singer, songwriter, educator, raconteur extraordinaire and author who played guitar and banjo with many top jazz artists over the course of his 70 year plus career and served as a mentor to numerous young New Orleans artists who have since come to prominence, including Wynton Marsalis, Herlin Riley, Leroy Jones, Stafford and White.
For complete sponsorship information please contact festival Executive Producer Detroit Brooks, 504-452-6705 or detroitbrooks@
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE AT THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ MUSEUM (Please note that the schedule may be altered due to the change of dates)
FRIDAY, MARCH 18
PERFORMANCE CENTER STAGE (third floor)
11:30 a.m. – Tom McDermott and Meschiya Lake
12:30 p.m. – Steve Pistorius Band
1:30 p.m. – Wendell Brunious Band
2:30 p.m. – Herlin Riley Quartet
3:30 p.m. – George and Gerald French Band
COURTYARD STAGE
11 a.m. – Shannon Powell Quartet
12 p.m. – Charmaine Neville Band
1 p.m. – Mark Brooks Quartet
2 p.m. – Gregg Stafford and the Jazz Hounds
3 p.m. – Don Vappie and Grio Trio
4 p.m. – Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers
SATURDAY, MARCH 19
PERFORMANCE CENTER STAGE (third floor)
11:30 a.m. – Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony
12:30 p.m. – Catherine Russell and the Danny Barker Tribute Band
1:30 p.m. – Steve Masakowski and the Masakowski Family Band
2:30 p.m. – Mari Watanabe Band
3:30 p.m. – Joe Hall and the Louisiana Cane Cutters with Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes
COURTYARD STAGE
12 p.m. – Leroy Jones and New Orleans’ Finest
1 p.m. – John Boutte
2 p.m. – Mahmoud Chouki Trio
4 p.m. – Treme Brass Band with Black Men of Labor and Baby Dolls
TALKIN’ DANNY BARKER
The festival will feature two days of great stories about—and (on tape) from Danny Barker—plus highlights of Danny and Blu Lu Barker’s recorded canon – in the New Orleans Jazz Museum’s Education Center
FRIDAY, MARCH 18
12 p.m. – Danny Barker Talks and Plays will include select excerpts from a half dozen interviews with Danny Barker, plus a sampling of great recordings by Danny and Blu Lu Barker, with radio producer and host Fred Kasten.
1 p.m. – Leroy Jones, the Fairview Baptist Church Band, and the Brass Band Revival will feature a conversation with New Orleans trumpeter and composer Leroy Jones. He was Danny Barker’s first recruit for the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, an ensemble that sparked a revival of brass bands in the Crescent City that continues more than 50 years later. Jones discusses the impact of Danny Barker on his career with journalist and author Keith Spera.
2 p.m. – Danny Barker: Cultural Advocate and Educator will include community activist Fred Johnson and educator Jonathan Bloom in a discussion with jazz journalist Geraldine Wyckoff about Danny Barker’s legacy as an educator and as an ambassador and advocate of New Orleans culture.
3 p.m. – Danny and Blu Lu Barker Take on the Big Apple | In their three plus decades on the scene in New York, the Barkers were important members of a creative community that included Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Danny’s uncle Paul Barbarin, and Barbarin’s song-writing partner Luis Russell. Grammy-winning vocalist Catherine Russell (Luis Russell’s daughter) and jazz historian Paul Kahn will discuss the Barkers’ time in New York with Fred Kasten.
4 p.m. – Video of Danny and Blu Lu will feature selections from the Hogan Jazz Archive’s Barker Collection at Tulane University. Curator Melissa A. Weber will conducts a video tour of the archive’s Barker collection and filmmaker Matt Martinez will present select video segments with the Barkers.
SATURDAY, MARCH 19
12 p.m. – Danny, Jelly Roll and the Dirty Dozen | Grammy-winning producer Scott Billington will discuss his forthcoming book, Making Tracks: A Record Producer’s Southern Roots Music Journey, with Fred Kasten. Billington will read selections that deal with studio sessions with Danny Barker as he worked on two recordings with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Jelly and The New Orleans Album. Billington will also play taped highlights of his interviews with Barker from those sessions.
1 p.m. – Herlin Riley: “Perpetual Optimism” and paying forward the legacy of Danny Barker | New Orleans rhythm master Herlin Riley will discuss Danny Barker’s profound impact on his life and career, and ways he tries to pass it on to other musicians, with journalis Gwen Thompkins, author and host of public radio’s Music Inside Out.
2 p.m. – Gregg Stafford, Danny Barker and the Jazz Hounds | Trumpeter and vocalist Gregg Stafford will discuss his long association with Danny and Blu Lu Barker—from the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band to the Jazz Hounds and beyond—with long-time WWOZ jazz programmer and host Sally Young.
3 p.m. – Danny Barker: His legacy is marching on! | Clarinetist, composer and educator Dr. Michael White and composer and educator Roger Dickerson will discuss Danny Barker’s ongoing legacy in New Orleans and beyond with interviewer and producer Fred Kasten.
4 p.m. – Tribute to author and New Orleans Jazz Museum founder Don Marquis | Jazz historian Charles Chamberlain, retired steamboat captain and calliope player Doc Hawley, writer and film director Daniel Pritzker(Bolden), curator Patrick Burns and journalist Geraldine Wyckoff will join Fred Kasten in a discussion about the many contributions to the documenting of jazz in New Orleans and New Orleans culture made by late author, historian and Jazz Museum founder Don Marquis who died on July 29, 2021, at age 88.
For more information about the Danny Barker Banjo and Guitar Festival, visit here.
