New Orleans’ ‘Mother of Music’ being honored

By Mason Harrison
Contributing Writer

Local artists will honor a staple of the city’s gospel community later this month at an annual gathering of the South­ern General Mis­sionary Baptist Chur­ch Assoc­ia­tion. For more than 50 years, New Orleans na­tive Barbara Frazier has guided the city’s congregants through music at church pianos and organs.

Frazier began what would become a half century of music ministry at the age of five, when her parents enrolled the burgeoning artist in music lessons. In eight years, Frazier debuted as a pianist for the youth choir of Sixth Union Baptist Church, followed by, at age 16, a music post at Antioch Baptist Church.

Born in 1944, her interest in music grew as she found herself in the company of various female pianists of the time. “I wanted to play like them,” Frazier says of the time she spent watching these women hone their crafts. At home—Frazier, barely into formal education—would mimic the playing styles of the women she observed, pretending to play the piano on what she calls her family’s “old time banister.”

Frazier became one of the youngest church musicians in New Orleans in the mid-1950s, playing for New St. Luke, Mount Bethel and Christian Mission churches. It was at Christian Mission where Frazier’s career as a musical talent leapt from the keys of the organ or piano into organizing the church’s music tradition. She parented the church’s musical celebrations and invited “various church choirs, quartets and groups to sing at the church,” according to a news release in New Orleans Community Church News

Frazier is often described as a “music evangelist,” traveling the city to perform before Black and white congregations. In May, she began an effort to preserve Christian Mission’s history of music through a studio recording of “treasured hymns and traditional gospels songs” sung by the church’s choir. After years of traveling to other congregations, Frazier is now the organist for Christian Mission’s male chorus.

Her love of music also extends to her six children, among them Phillip Frazier, the co-founder of the famed Rebirth Brass Band, which has traveled the country almost since its inception. Although the band, formed in 1983, is known for its wide variety of secular hits, Frazier says she made sure the sounds of gospel music would flow from the group’s polished instruments. “I taught them how to play ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee,’” she recounts. “[It is] the right way—the church way, and they still play it that way today.” The group won a Grammy Award in 2012 for best regional roots music album in Los Angeles.

The Second General Missionary Baptist Church Association is among the oldest Baptist Associations in New Orleans. This year, the organization marks the 116th anniversary of its general session on May 26. Gospel artists, like Frazier, will be honored that day at Pilgrims Rest Missionary Baptist Church in the Lower Ninth Ward. Frazier also serves as a support musician for the Baptist association. The group’s annual music celebration of gospel artists begins at 7 p.m. at 2428 Flood Street.

This article originally published in the May 18, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.