Bill Barber (musician)

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Bill Barber (musician)

John William Barber, known as Bill Barber or Billy Barber (May 21, 1920 -- June 18, 2007) is considered by many to be the first person to play tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped Mouthpiece ....
in modern jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
. He is best known for his work with Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an United States jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s: he played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jaz...
on albums such as Birth of the Cool
Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool is an LP album which compiles twelve songs recorded by the Miles Davis nonet for Capitol Records in 1949 and 1950. Featuring unusual instrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consisted of innovative arrangements strongly inspired by classical music, and marked a major development in post-bebop jazz....
, Sketches of Spain
Sketches of Spain

Sketches of Spain is an album by Miles Davis, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960. The album pairs Davis with arranger and composer Gil Evans, with whom he had collaborated on several other projects, on a program of compositions largely derived from the Spanish folk tradition....
and Miles Ahead
Miles Ahead

Miles Ahead is a jazz album by Miles Davis released in 1957. This was the first album after Birth of the Cool that Davis recorded with Gil Evans, with whom he would go on to release albums such as Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain....
. There is a younger musician with the name of Billy Barber

Billy Barber (musician)

Billy Barber is a keyboardist and composer. He is the son of pianist and composer William C. Barber, also known as Bill Barber Sr.He is most noted for the theme song for All My Children in the 1990's as well as keyboardist for the jazz group Flim & the BB's with Jimmy Johnson and Bill Berg ....
; who plays keyboards. The two are unrelated.

Early life and career
Barber was born John William Barber in Hornell, New York

Hornell, New York

Hornell is a city in Steuben County, New York, New York, United States. The population was 9,019 at the 2000 census. The city is named after the Hornell family, early settlers....
near Rochester

Rochester, New York

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John William Barber, known as Bill Barber or Billy Barber (May 21, 1920 -- June 18, 2007) is considered by many to be the first person to play tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped Mouthpiece ....
in modern jazz

Jazz

Miles Davis

Billy Barber (musician)

Early life and career

Barber was born John William Barber in Hornell, New York

Hornell, New York

Hornell is a city in Steuben County, New York, New York, United States. The population was 9,019 at the 2000 census. The city is named after the Hornell family, early settlers....
near Rochester

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, New York State, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. The Rochester metropolitan area is the second largest economy in New York State, behind the New York City metropolitan area....
in 1920. He started playing tuba in high school and studied at the Juilliard School of Music. After graduating, he travelled west to Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson County, Missouri, Clay County, Missouri, Cass County, Missouri, and Platte County, Missouri counties....
where he played with the Kansas City Philharmonic and various ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a formalized type of performative dance, the origins of which date lay in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France courts, and which was further developed in England, Italy, and Russia as a concert dance form....
and theatre

Theatre

Theatre is the branch of the performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one or more actor, isolated in time and/or Theater , present themselves to Audience." By this broad definition, theatre has existed since the dawn of man, as a result of human tendency for story telling....
orchestras.

Jazz musician

He joined the United States Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for Army operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S....
in 1942 and played in an army band for three years. After the war, he started playing jazz joining Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill was an United States pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. He composed the jazz and pop standard "Snowfall"....
's big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the swing from the early 1930s until the late 1940s....
in 1947. Barber was one of the first tuba players to play in a modern jazz style, playing solos and participating in intricate ensemble pieces.

Barber became a founding member of Miles Davis' nonet

Nonet

A nonet refers to a group of nine.*In music, a nonet is a composition which requires nine musicians for a performance. Louis Spohr and Martinu composed nonets....
in 1949 in what became known as the Birth of the Cool recording sessions. He then worked in theatre pit orchestras before joining up with Davis and Gil Evans

Gil Evans

Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader, active in the United States. He played a seminal role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz and jazz-rock, and collaborated extensively with Miles Davis....
in 1957 to record albums such as Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess (Miles Davis album)

Porgy and Bess is a studio album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1958 on Columbia Records. The album features arrangements by Davis and collaborator Gil Evans from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess....
. Barber also played on John Coltrane's only big band album Africa/Brass
Africa/Brass

Africa/Brass is a 1961 album by John Coltrane, his first for the new Impulse! label. It features Coltrane's five-piece working band , backed by a fifteen-piece brass band including, among others, trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Booker Little, and bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy....
.

Later career

Barber completed a Master's Degree from the Manhattan School of Music

Manhattan School of Music

The Manhattan School of Music is a world-renowned music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers Academic degrees on the Bachelors degree, Masters degree, and doctoral levels in the areas of european classical music and jazz performance and composition....
and became a high school music teacher at Copiague, New York

Copiague, New York

Copiague is a hamlet in Suffolk County, New York, New York, United States. The population was 21,922 at the 2000 census. Copiague is home to a nationally distinguished marching band....
. He continued to play where possible including with the Goldman Band

Goldman Band

The Goldman band was formed by American musician and composer Edwin Franko Goldman in 1918 from the earlier New York Military Band....
. In 1992, he recorded and toured with a nonet led by Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan

Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an United States jazz saxophonist, composer and arrangement.Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophone in jazz history - playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz - he was also a notable arranger, working with Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis,...
reworking material from Birth of the Cool. From 1998-2004 he was part of the The Seatbelts New York Musicians

The Seatbelts

were a Japanese blues/jazz band led by composer and instrumentalist Yoko Kanno. The name of the band, according to the fictional description given in the anime series Cowboy Bebop, derives from how the performers wear seatbelts to be safe while they play hardcore jam sessions....
that played the music of the Japanese anime Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop

is a Japanese Anime Television program. Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and written by Keiko Nobumoto, Cowboy Bebop was produced by Sunrise . Consisting of 26 episodes, the series follows the adventures of a group of bounty hunters, or "cowboys", traveling on their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071....
. He died of heart failure in June 2007 in Bronxville, New York

Bronxville, New York

Bronxville is a Political subdivisions of New York State#Village within the Political subdivisions of New York State#Town of Eastchester , New York, New York....
.