Barney Bigard

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From left: Jack Teagarden, Sandy DeSantis, Velma Middleton, Fraser MacPherson, Cozy Cole, Arvell Shaw, Earl Hines, Barney Bigard. At the Palomar Supper Club, March 17, 1951.

Barney Bigard , actually Leonard Albany Bigard, (* 3. March 1906 in New Orleans , Louisiana ; † 27. June 1980 in Culver City , California ) was an American jazz - clarinet .

Live and act

Bigard came from a Creole family and had a number of musical relatives; his cousins ​​were Natty Dominique and Armand J. Piron . He received his first clarinet lessons from Lorenzo Tio jr. , one of the most important clarinetists of the early years of New Orleans Jazz . As a teenager, he played in the famous Tom Anderson's, a cabaret that featured a number of leading black jazz musicians in the fading days of Storyville . As a clarinetist and tenor saxophonist he played with Albert Nicholas in 1922 . After briefly working at Octave Gaspard, Amos White and Luis Russell , he returned to Nicholas and went with him to Chicago in 1924 .

In 1925 Bigard got an engagement with King Oliver , who appeared in the Plantation Cafe . After a few short stops - u. a. in the band of Luis Russell, who played "The Nest" in the legendary Harlem breakfast bar - in January 1928 he switched to the Duke Ellington orchestra . In the 14 years of his membership in this formation he became world-famous and contributed significantly to the typical style of the Ellington Orchestra through his way of playing the clarinet . Titles like " Mood Indigo ", which he wrote with Mitchell Parish , were his, even if this was not always recorded on the records. The simple basic motif on which Ellington's “ C Jam Blues ” (1942) is based is also attributed to him. In 1937 the version of the Ellington classic " Caravan ", recorded under his name, hit the charts and appeared in 1955 on The Duke's Men .

At the end of 1940 he took part in the legendary concert in Fargo, North Dakota . In 1942, after leaving the Ellington Orchestra, he moved to Los Angeles and worked for a time with his own band, with which he accompanied Etta Jones on her recordings for Black & White Records . He had a hit in the "Harlem Hit Parade" (the forerunner of the R&B charts) in 1942 with "C Blues". From the mid-1940s he played with Kid Ory again and again, only to work in the following years mainly in Louis Armstrong's various all-star groups . In 1955 he left Armstrong's group in order to occasionally perform with other jazz musicians and make recordings. In 1958/59 he led a band with Cozy Cole , with which he a. a. performed in Las Vegas . In 1961 he returned briefly to Armstrong; from 1962 Bigard withdrew into private life, but still appeared occasionally with Earl Hines , Muggsy Spanier , Ben Pollack and Rex Stewart . In 1971 he went on a college tour with Art Hodes , Wild Bill Davison and Eddie Condon . In the mid-1970s he was a guest. a. at the festivals of Pescara, San Sebastian, Bordeaux and Newport , most recently at the Nice Jazz Festival in 1979.

In 1986 his autobiography With Louis and the Duke was published .

Discographic notes

literature

Web links

Commons : Barney Bigard  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date of death according to Bohländer u. a. Reclams Jazzführer 1989, Allmusic Guide
personal data
SURNAME Bigard, Barney
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bigard, Leonard Albany (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American clarinetist
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH New Orleans
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1980
Place of death Culver City