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.

This section of the website is divided into three separate pages:

Updated January 2018

Part 1: 1950 to 1960
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.
As well as Chris Barber and his New Orleans Jazz Band, this 1952 concert in north London featured several other bands, including the Crane River Jazz Band, Charlie Galbraith, Cy Laurie, Eric Silk, and the Christie Brothers.
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 a concert at the Pavilion Theatre, Liverpool, on January 15, 1956.
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.
Note the signature of Big Bill Broonzy!

Sister Rosetta Tharpe 1957 Tour Programme.

Thanks to Chrissie Napier, this page now includes scans of autographs by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Russell Morrison (Sister's husband and manager), Eddie Smith, Ottilie Patterson, and Monty Sunshine, as well as a ticket from the Swansea concert.

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.
Chris Barber in Berlin - 1959:
This is one of THE classic albums by Chris Barber's Jazz Band.

We have been contacted by a German jazz musician and collector, Peter Kazubski, who informed us that he took photographs at the great concert in Berlin on May 23, 1959 at the Deutschlandhalle. So, 51 years after that event, we are proud and happy to present exclusively these pictures here on the website.
Programme from a 1959 British tour by the George Lewis 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.
An Article from the Melody Maker, November 14, 1959:

Gerard Bielderman, the Dutch collector and discographer, has sent us another printout from the music paper Melody Maker, dated November 14, 1959. You can read this very interesting article, written by Tony Brown, reflecting the success of the Barber Band and the unfair critics of that time.
Chris Barber, while on a US tour in 1959, writes for the Melody Maker:
This is an excerpt from Gerard Bielderman's Scrap Book. Very interesting to read!
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.
This is a publicity flyer for one of the last concerts that Monty Sunshine played with the Chris Barber Band before leaving to start his own unit at the end of 1960.
Programme from a 1960 Dutch tour.
Programme from a tour of Switzerland in 1960.

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