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Why Barrie decided to make sweet music all over again An article on clarinettist Barrie Marshall
reproduced
As far as Barrie Marshall is concerned, bands are a bit like buses. You wait for ages, and then two come along at once.
Barrie decided that simultaneous requests to join the Lune Valley Vintage Jazz Band and the Cat Island Street Band were an omen that he should get out there and make sweet music. He couldn’t choose between the bands, so he joined both. He also hitched up to popular jazz venue Cabin in Bowness-on-Windermere every Sunday to sit in with the resident group there. Plus he toured around the country doing parades and shows with community arts groups. Barrie now leads the Sun Street Stompers, the resident Sunday lunchtime group at Lancaster’s premier jazz pub The John 0’ Gaunt. The band has been going 16 years, and operates under two strict criteria: “It has to be fun, not a working band,” says Barrie. ‘And people have to be able to sit in.” This generous guiding principle means that the Sunday sessions have become the local ‘jazz academy’. Players of all ages come along to try out their latest tune or a song, and generally contribute to a lively and entertaining session. Barrie gets great pleasure from watching novices cut their jazz teeth in public. And his top tip for would-be players is. “Listen”. “It’s not just about playing,” he says, “it’s about listening - to yourself and to the rest of the band. New Orleans music is described as ‘collective improvisation’ - so you have to know what other people in the band are doing.” Inevitably, there have been hiccups and highlights along the way Barrie plays two types of clarinet, and a clarinet has to be taken to bits to travel. He once rushed off to a gig and found he’d brought bits of two different clarinets and they wouldn’t fit together! As for high points, Barrie reckons his finest hour came when he was working with community theatre group Theatre of Fire, who specialise in pyrotechnic spectacles. An enormous bonfire studded with fireworks was the grand finale of a public show attended by 15,000 people. Then, just when no one thought it could get any more exciting, Barrie led a band of 15 musicians out of the middle of the inferno. “You should have seen their faces,” he says with relish. So - what’s the buzz about playing? “It’s about communication,” he says. “It’s about transmitting my enjoyment to the audience.” Barrie’s soaring clarinet communicates that enjoyment with considerable gusto. You can catch him with the Sun Street Stompers at the John O'Gaunt on Market Street on Sunday lunchtimes from 12 to 3pm. He also plays with the New Riverside Jazz Band, see What's On Sue Parish Photograph by Graham Cornthwaite - 1st Feb 2011
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