Trombonist Lucien Barbarin dies

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

“I like to explore with the music. I love to have fun with music,” Lucien Barbarin declared in a 2011 interview. The always engaging trombonist, a member of the legendary musical Barbarin family who gained further national recognition blowing and recording with pianist and vocalist Harry Connick Jr.’s band, demonstrated those traits whenever he stepped on a bandstand. Lucien Barbarin died on Thursday, January 30, 2020. He was 63.

At the age of 6, Lucien began his musical journey as a drummer hoping to follow in the footsteps of his great uncle, the renowned Paul Barbarin (1899-1969). “I was inspired by one of the great drummers who created New Orleans style drumming – that certain kind of beat that you hear drummers playing today,” said Barbarin.

“He always gave me and my brother, Charles, what he called the “two-beat.” I must have been about seven or eight years old and we would play with the Onward Brass Band (then led by Paul Barbarin). When the band would stop playing, usually the drums would play this cadence. Instead of us playing that, me and my brother would play the two beat. That’s to keep the dancers and the second liners excited. So that’s the first beat I can remember learning from my uncle.”

LUCIEN BARBARIN

Lucien, who was certainly widely known as a trombonist through his long and successful career, was still on drums when, as a teenager, he joined the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band, which was established by his elder cousin, the great guitarist/banjoist Danny Barker. Though Barbarin started playing brass instruments in elementary school, it wasn’t until the end of his tenure with the Fairview and when he began working with an offshoot of the group, the Hurricane Brass Band, that the trombone became his main ax. Barbarin’s first recording was with the Hurricane on the 1976 self-titled release.

Naturally, Barker was a huge influence on Barbarin both in lessons offered and simply by Lucien observing the master. When he took up trombone, Barbarin remembered Barker’s advice that you would never go wrong if you stuck to the melody. He applied that piece of wisdom no matter what style of music he was playing and he did enjoy playing many genres though traditional New Orleans jazz was his mainstay. On stage, Barbarin shared his cousin’s flair for showmanship and humor. “Of course it’s in my genes,” Barbarin said adding that he picked up on Barker’s style. “I find myself doing some of the things he used to do,” he said with a laugh.

Barbarin began blowing trombone in earnest when he was around 20 and started working on Bourbon Street with drumming great June Gardner. He realized that he could get more work and earn more money with the horn. “I took a liking to it, too,” Barbarin offered.

He spent about five years working on Bourbon and has shared stages with the likes of such notables as trumpeters Wallace Davenport, Teddy Riley, clarinetist Pud Brown and Humphrey brothers trumpeter Percy and clarinetist Willie.

Others who benefited from having the trombonist by their side were trumpeters Wallace Davenport and and Teddy Riley, clarinetist Michael White and pianist Lars Edegran.

When he was home and in recent years, Lucien was most often heard leading a band at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe where he performed just last fall. He was also a regular at Preservation Hall and often participated in the Nickel-A-Dance series, which he said that he dug because people would fill the dance floor. He definitely enlivened the sets at the popular event in the autumn of 2019 as a sideman in trumpeter Mark Braud’s Band.

Barbarin’s discography reveals his diversity and the respect that he received from other musicians. Beyond Connick, Lucien blew his trombone on recordings by trumpeters Wynton Marsalis, Nicholas Payton – on an album with trombonist Doc Cheatham – Leroy Jones, the Marsalis family (“A Jazz Celebration”), the Preservation Hall Jazz Band the Palm Court Jazz Band and others. He also recorded as leader and performed with vibraphonist and bandleader Lionel Hampton and vocalist Dianne Reeves.

Lucien Barbarin had old-school ways in that he understood the importance of being an entertainer. He employed that philosophy in the way he blew trombone, sang and jived on a bandstand. He was too funny.

He once said he’d tell a crowd, “You’re feet will get dusty, your underarms are gonna get musty. So come out and have fun.”

This article originally published in the February 3, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.