# Soulful trombonist and link to New Orleans musical tradition Lucien Barbarin, has died at 63: Photos, Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2020/02/04/soulful-trombonist-and-link-to-new-orleans-musical-tradition-lucien-barbarin-has-died-at-63-photos-video/
- Published: 2020-02-04T17:14:22+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Lucien Barbarin, a playfully suave and boisterous trombonist who carried a torch
for traditional New Orleans music, most visibly as a featured soloist with Harry
Connick, Jr. and a member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, died on Thursday. 
He was 63, and lived in Slidell, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans.**

The cause was Stage IV prostate cancer, for which Barbarin had been in treatment
since 2018.

Barbarin had a full, braying sound that he could deftly turn in any direction — 
toward murmuring balladry or a rambunctious blare. Forged by the venerable rituals
of New Orleans street parades, he was one of our era’s leading exponents of the 
growly tailgate style. But he remained a modern musician, never boxed in by the 
traditions he served.

“Every trombone player in New Orleans will say they got something from Lucien,” 
Ben Jaffe, the creative director of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, tells WBGO.“
He was one of the giants of New Orleans music, and I’m not overstating that.”

That towering stature began with a birthright. Barbarin hailed from one of the most
storied musical families in a city that takes its musical families seriously: his
great-uncle was Paul Barbarin, a drummer who worked in bands led by King Oliver 
and Luis Russell in the 1920s, later founding and leading the Onward Brass Band.(
Looking back one more generation, Paul Barbarin’s father, Isidore, was a member 
of the Tuxedo Brass Band, which helped hone and launch a hot young cornetist named
Louis Armstrong.)

Among the contemporary New Orleans musicians who voiced their sadness at Lucien 
Barbarin’s passing were trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Leroy Jones, saxophonist 
Branford Marsalis — and Connick, who shared pictures of the trombonist in the studio,
one year ago.

Lucien Barbarin was born on July 17, 1956 in New Orleans. He grew up in the Lafitte
Housing Project in the Sixth Ward, which includes the heart of the storied Tremé
neighborhood.

As a small child, he had a formative relationship with great-uncle Paul, who once
introduced him to Duke Ellington; by age six, he was playing drums with the Onward
Brass Band. He continued as a drummer in school bands, until pivoting toward brass
instruments in the fourth grade. He played baritone and tuba for a while, switching
to trombone in high school.

In 1970, he joined another family relation — banjoist Danny Barker, a second cousin—
as a founding member of the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band. The group quickly
attracted a following in New Orleans, in no small part due to the bravura presence
of Leroy Jones. In 1974, after a union dispute, Jones broke off and formed the Hurricane
Brass Band, bringing Barbarin along. Around the same time, Barbarin got a steady
gig on Bourbon Street, at a club called The Famous Door.

In recent years, Barbarin was a fixture at The Palm Court on Decatur Street, along
with peers like Jones and another spirited trumpeter, Mark Braud. His second album
as a leader, from 2000, is credited to Lucien Barbarin and the Palm Court Swingsters.
Its high-spirited tone rings clear within moments of the opening track, a Tin Pan
Alley tune called “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me,” a former vehicle for Sidney
Bechet. (Barbarin begins a terrific solo at 0:41, but you should also note the brawny
quickness in his rapport with the other horns.)

Barbarin was a cherished member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, but his first
priority as a gigging musician was always with Connick, who featured him not only
as a trombone player but also a comic right-hand man. He joined Connick’s band in
1990, appearing on more than a dozen of the singer’s albums, on a succession of 
world tours, and in at least two Broadway shows. (His illness interfered with the
most recent, _Harry Connick Jr. — A Celebration of Cole Porter._) He was in the 
house band for the syndicated talk show _Harry_ during its two-season run, from 
2016-18.

Along with his many credits in the Connick discography, Barbarin recorded with Wynton
Marsalis, Kermit Ruffins, Dr. Michael White and Wendell Brunious, among others. 
He also appears, playing himself, in a 2011 episode of Tremé, the HBO series.

Among his survivors are his wife, Sheryl Barbarin; two sons, Robert and Paul; two
daughters, Alissa and Darlene; two brothers, Jerry Walker and Charles Barbarin; 
two sisters, Diane Abram and Angela Barbarin Foy; and seven grandchildren. A third
son, Lucien Joseph, died in 2017.

“I think of New Orleans and the music community here, particularly the African American
community, as being an ecosystem,” says Jaffe. “And sometimes pieces of that ecosystem
fall apart. But when you lose someone like Lucien, it’s like losing a huge part 
of a glacier. You can’t get it back.”

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.wbgo.org/sites/wbgo/files/styles/medium/public/202001/
lucien_barbarin.png?w=640&ssl=1)

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