Barney Bigard

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

Life and work

Bigard comes from a Creole family and had a number of music-making relative; his cousins ​​were Natty Dominique and Armand J. Piron. He received his first clarinet lessons from Lorenzo Tio Jr., one of the greatest clarinetists of the early years of New Orleans jazz. As a teenager he played in the famous " Tom Anderson's ", a theater in which occurred a number of leading black jazz musicians in the fading days of Storyville. As a clarinetist and tenor saxophonist, he played in 1922 with Albert Nicholas. After working briefly at Octave Gaspard, Amos White and Luis Russell, he went back to Nicholas and went with him to Chicago in 1924.

Bigard in 1925 where he received an engagement with King Oliver, who appeared at the Plantation Cafe. After a few short intermediate stations - inter alia in the band of Luis Russell, who played in the legendary Harlem buffet restaurant " The Nest " - he moved in January 1928 in the orchestra of Duke Ellington. In the 14 years of his membership in that group he was known worldwide and sported by his style of clarinet repertoire significantly to the typical of the Ellington orchestra style. Titles such as " Mood Indigo ," which he wrote with Mitchell Parish, come from him, even though this was not always held on the plates. Even the simple basic motif, based on the Ellington's "C Jam Blues" (1942 ), is attributed to him. In 1937 the rehearsed under his name version of the Ellington classic " Caravan" in the charts, appeared in 1955 on The Duke 's Men

He was in late 1940 with the legendary concert in Fargo, North Dakota. 1942, after his retirement from the Ellington orchestra, he moved to Los Angeles and worked occasionally with his own band, with which he accompanied Etta Jones in their recordings for Black & White Records. From the mid- 1940s he played again with Kid Ory, and then mainly participate in the subsequent period in the different all-star groups of Louis Armstrong. In 1955 he left Armstrong's group to then still occasionally perform with other jazz musicians and make recordings. 1958/59 he led with Cozy Cole, a band with which he, inter alia, occurred in Las Vegas. In 1961 he returned briefly to Armstrong; from 1962, Bigard withdrew into private life, but still occasionally came up with Earl Hines, Muggsy Spanier, Ben Pollack and Rex Stewart. In 1971 he went with Art Hodes, Wild Bill Davison and Eddie Condon on a college tour. Mid-70s, he guested et al at the festivals of Pescara, San Sebastian, Bordeaux and Newport, most recently at the Nice Jazz Festival 1979.

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

Disco Graphical Notes

Storyville (New Orleans) Joe "King" Oliver Caravan (1937 song) Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live Newport Jazz Festival Chronological Classics James Lincoln Collier Name Authority File
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