Sweet Emma Barrett

Sweet Emma Barrett ( born March 25, 1897 in New Orleans, † January 28, 1983 ibid ) was an American pianist and singer of the New Orleans Jazz. It was also Bell Gal (bell girls) named after a Christmas cap with bells that they wore during performances.

Barrett was an autodidact ( she could never read music ) and received her first musical inspiration of street musicians in New Orleans. She went from 1923 to 1936 with the original Tuxedo Orchestra under Papa Celestin, then William Ridgley. There are recordings of her from 1923 with Papa Celestin, so she was one of the first female jazz instrumentalists recorded. She also worked with the bands of Armand Piron, John Robichaux, and Sidney Desvigne on, also toured outside of New Orleans (especially with Percy Humphrey's band ) and performed regularly from 1947 on Club Happy Landing.

In 1961 she had success with their debut album for the Living Legend series by Riverside Records, and was followed by a fixed size at Preservation Hall and toured internationally with the Preservation Hall band. In 1967, she was paralyzed after a stroke on the left side, but still came up in the 1980s.

Your outspoken Barrelhouse piano style was sometimes described as a pile driver attack ( Pfahlbohrer ).

Discography

• Sweet Emma, Riverside 1960
• The Bell Gall and her Dixieland Boys Music, Riverside, 1961 ( with Emanuel Sayles, Placide Adams, Bass, Paul Barbarin, Alvin Alcorn, Jim Robinson, Louis Cottrell Jr., Don Albert, Frog Joseph, Raymond Burke)
• Sweet Emma Barrett and her New Orleans Music, Southland 1963
• Sweet Emma Barrett and her Preservation Jazz Band, Preservation Hall in 1964