In this part of the website you'll find lots of rare archive material related to tours and concerts by the Barber Band over its fifty-year history -- programmes, posters, flyers, and so on. You can also view tour programmes on Andreas Wandfluh's website.
Thanks to Alan Grubb, we now have scans of a four-page programme from a very early concert -- December 1950 -- by the Crane River Jazz Band and Chris Barber and his New Orleans Jazz Band.
Here is one of the oldest and rarest items on the entire Chris Barber website: a three-page programme for a concert at Birmingham University in 1952. Note in particular the description of Chris and the band, giving us new insight into the very earliest days of the almost sixty years' history of the Chris Barber Band.
Another very old (1952) concert programme.
Composite page showing two of the oldest programmes in the archive: concerts in Manchester and Newcastle, October 1954.
Programme from a concert in Sheffield, April 1955.
Wembley concert programme, 1955.
Programme from "Rhythm With The Stars", a 6-day package tour of Northern England in March, 1956.
Programme from the band's first solo concert at the Royal Festival Hall, 28th April, 1956.
Programme from a concert in Brighton, August 1956.
Nixa Cavalcade of Jazz, 1956.
Reminiscences of a concert in London in December 1956 that was recorded and released as the first in the series of Chris Barber In Concert LP records.
Programme for the concert on December 15, 1956 (see record cover, above).
Concert Programme: Brighton, Friday, 25th January, 1957.
Concert Programme: "The Chris Barber Show 1957"
Concert Programme: "The Chris Barber Show 1957"
Tour Programme: Jazz Scene 1957.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe 1957 Tour Programme.
Programme from The Chris Barber Jazz Show Featuring Ottilie Patterson, Royal Festival Hall, London, April 27, 1957.
Programme from a concert in Brighton, July 1957.
Programme from a concert in Birmingham Town Hall, Friday 20th September, 1957.
Programme from a concert in Guildford, 1957
Programme from a concert in Windsor, 1957
Programme from a tour of Germany in 1958.
Programme from a tour of Denmark in 1958.
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1958 Tour Programme.
Programme from the Floating Festival of Jazz, 1958.
Programme from a Royal Festival Hall Concert by Chris Barber's Jazz Band and the Dutch Swing College Band, 1958.
Programme from the 1958 tour with Muddy Waters.
"Jazz at the Marquee" programme, 1958.
Concert programme from the 1950s.
Jazzshows 1958 souvenir programme
Programme from a BBC Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, 1958
Concert programme from 1958 or 1959.
Programme from a 1959 British tour by the George Lews New Orleans Band.
Publicity booklet and programme for the first US tour.
Programme from the 11th Annual Jazz Concert, New Orleans, October 26, 1959.
On the day of the concert shown in the previous item, Chris Barber was presented with a certificate designating him as an Honorary Citizen of New Orleans.....
..... and the New Orleans jazz magazine, The Second Line, featured the Chris Barber Band in the September-October 1959 edition.
Programme from a concert in Leicester, 1959
1959 concert programme.
Programme from a British tour in the late 1950s.
Pat Halcox wrote this account of the band's third North American tour in October and November of 1960, and we have added a few extra items.
Programme from a tour of the UK with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, April 1960.
Programme from a concert in Toronto, Canada, on October 12, 1960.
Programme from a 1960 Dutch tour.
Programme from a tour of Switzerland in 1960.
Tour Programme from the Early 1960s
Programme from the Beaulieu Jazz Festival, 1961
Programme from a Concert in Glasgow, 1961
Concert Programme from a Tour of West Germany in 1961
Programme from a tour of Germany in 1962 with American clarinettist Ed Hall.
(Includes links to other parts of the website covering the recordings the band made with Edmond Hall.)
Programme from the 1962 tour with Louis Jordan.
(Includes links to other parts of the website covering the recordings the band made with Louis Jordan.)
Programme from the 1962 Richmond Jazz Festival.
Programme from a British tour in 1964.
Programme from a tour of East Germany in 1965.
Programme from a tour of Switzerland, 1965.
Programme from a tour of Switzerland, 1966.
This is a particularly interesting -- albeit short -- 1966 tour programme, because the text, written by Chris Barber, is all about New Orleans brass bands and the Eagle Brass Band featured on the tour. The photographs on pages 2 and 3 were taken a few years earlier, and were part of a set, twenty-four of which are reproduced elsewhere in this website: go to Photographs page 5 and scroll down to Photographs from a Street Parade in Washington, DC.
Programme from a tour of Switzerland, 1967.
Programme from a tour of Switzerland in 1968
Posters and a Programme from Sweden in the 1960s (Thanks to Kjell Wiklund).
Programme from a 1971-1972 tour: This booklet is interesting because it is longer than most, contains photos and short essays about each band member, and has the text in three languages -- English, Frech, and German.
Publicity Flyer for a 1972 Concert.
. Souvenir booklet from 1976 or 1977: This is one of the longest and most comprehensive of the tour booklets produced up until the mid-1970s. It includes photographies and short biographies of each band member at the time (Chris Barber, Pat Halcox, John Crocker, Johnny McCallum, Pete York, John Slaughter, and Jackie Flavelle), plus a discography and a list of band personnel changes beginning in 1949.
Tour programme, probably 1978. This is a rare programme from a tour featuring the relatively short-lived line-up of the band after Sammy Rimington joined but before John Slaughter left. The programme includes a contribution in both English and German by Humphrey Lyttelton.
Concert programme, Theatre Royal, Winchester, 27 August 1979.
Four pages from the programme for a concert at the Barbican, London, on 20 April 1982. The programme includes a short essay by Humphrey Lyttelton.The concert was recorded for the double-LP, Barbican Blues.
Take Me Back To New Orleans -- Souvenir programme with text in English and German.
Programme from the 30 Years Tour in 1985, featuring Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine. The text is in both English and German.
Programme from a tour of "The Three Bs" -- Ball, Barber and Bilk, in 1985.
Programme from a late-1980s tour -- lots of colour photographs and information about the 1986-1988 lineup of the Chris Barber Jazz and Blues Band.
The 1954-1994 Reunion Tour: Souvenir booklet and concert programme. This is a nicely illustrated 32-page booklet with numerous photographs in colour and black-&-white, and with text in both English and German.
Publicity leaflet from the Reunion Tour of 1994.
Here's one for our Danish friends: Programme from the 1994 reunion tour, featuring the original 1954 Chris Barber's Jazz Band and the then-current Chris Barber Jazz and Blues Band. The programme includes several photographs from the band's visit to Copenhagen in 1954.
Another Danish item, this one a programme from a 1997 concert of the Chris Barber Jazz & Blues Band plus symphony orchestra.

Programme from the Down Under 2000 Tour with Kenny Ball's Jazzmen.

Ray Green of New Zealand has written a short article about the Down Under 2000 Tour.

Pamphlet from a concert by the Big Chris Barber Band in Chichester Cathedral, July 11, 2002.
VIPs of Jazz concert poster, 2002.
50th anniversary tour concert poster.
50th Anniversary Tour Concert Review ~ The Anvil, Basingstoke, June 11, 2003, by Julian Purser.
Ball, Barber and Bilk concert poster, 2003.
50th Anniversary Tour Concert Review ~ Swindon and Yeovil, February 23 & 24, 2004, by Julian Purser.
Van Morrison concerts, April and May 2004: Photographs and text by Julian Purser.
Programme from the Lonnie Donegan Tribute Concert, 2004.
Julian Purser reports on the Lonnie Donegan Tribute Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on Monday 21 June, 2004.
The Water Rats Ball, November 2004.
The Big Chris Barber Band
Orwell Park School, Nr. Ipswich, Suffolk, U.K.
Friday 3rd December, 2004

Reviewed by Jerry Brown.


The Big Chris Barber Band in Denmark, January 2005: Andreas Wandfluh's account of his eventful trip to Denmark to see the band perform with Sjællands Symfoniorkester.
Chris Barber's 75th Birthday Concert, Liverpool, 6 July 2005, featuring Van Morrison, Andy Fairweather Low, Bill Wyman, and "Big Bill" Morganfield.
Two photographs of Andy Fairweather-Low on tour with the Big Chris Barber Band, December 2005.


THE BIG CHRIS BARBER BAND CLIMBS MOUNTAINS! -- A diary of the road crew battling snow and ice to get to the next gig, by Julian Purser.

Chris was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by Durham University on 28 June 2006.
Photo, article, and a short introduction by Chris about a New Orleans Jazz Parade in Covent Garden, June 2006.
Miscellaneous tour and concert posters from the 1990s and 2000s.
On Thursday 30th August, 2007, the Big Chris Barber Band filmed a live concert at Shepperton Studios. Click here to view a copy of Julian Purser's invitation to this exclusive event, plus a set of photographs provided by Ben Williams of Classic T Studio, the company which is re-issuing the band's recent CD, Can't Stop Now.
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