Master musician Chris Barber is most widely known as the trombonist/leader of Chris Barber Jazz & Blues Band. It is less known that he is a multi-instrumentalist and that he founded London's famous Marquee Club and intitiated the National Jazz & Blues Festival which evolved into The Reading Rock Festival.

However, his training in music which began in Cambridge during the last war, seemed hardly designed as a launch pad into a career as a jazz musician. Chris Barber studied classical violin under a Mnsr. Maurice in Cambridge while a student at King Alfred School which had been evacuated en-bloc to Royston during the war years. He was later to continue studies on both violin and double bass at the Guildhall School of Music in London. 

It was during those Royston schooldays that Chris' interest in jazz first developed and there were times when the money paid to him by his father for the violin lessons was deverted into the tills of Miller's Music Shop in Cmabridge in exchange for jazz gramophone records. On a fine day even the bus fare from Royston would go into that kitty: young Barber "hitching" along the A10 on his bicycle and literally grabbing free rides by holding on to vans or trailers to speed his progress into Cambridge.

Chris Barber's parents had studied at Cambridge. His father, Donald under Keynes at Trinity and his mother Hetty obtained her BA at Girton. They met at the Cambridge University Labour Club. It was little surprise that their hopes for son Christopher were for some sort of academic professional career. Initially the signs were encouraging for, having excelled in mathematics, Chris began training as an actuary.

But the promise was short-lived. As a result of a chance meeting between Chris Barber and a hard-up Harry Brown at London's 100 Club, Chris was persuaded to part with the princely sum of six pounds and ten shillings in exchange for Mr. Brown's battered second hand trombone. Only months later the first Chris Barber Band had been formed on an amateur basis and during 1949 they made their first recordings.

By the early 1950's Chris had realised that the only way to become really proficient as a jazz musician was to devote full time attention to it so the insurance industry lost one of its pupils! "We did not really think that it was possible to create a long term career making a living out of playing jazz" recalls Chris. "But the music was becoming commercially more popular at the time so our plan was to continue until the bubble burst and then return to our 'daytime' jobs". "Here we are, 44 years or so later, still waiting".

Visit Chris Barber on the World Wide Web at: http://www.chrisbarber.net