The Danny Barker Banjo & Guitar Festival returns to New Orleans March 16-20, 2022! The eighth annual festival will again offer a mix of live music performances, interviews, and panel discussions at the New Orleans Jazz Museum (by admission - $15 each day); a free day of music at the National Park Service French Quarter Visitors Center (419 Decatur Street) on Saturday, March 19, 2022; school clinics, workshops, a Patron Party to kickoff the festival on the evening of March 16, 2022 at The Terrell House (including live music, hors d’oeuvres, drinks, silent auction - $45 individual - $75 couple); and Tribute to Danny and Blu Lu Barker at Snug Harbor March 18 (tickets at www.snugjazz.com - $30) with shows at 8pm and 10pm featuring Topsy Chapman and an all-star band led by Dr. Michael White.

Originally scheduled for January around Danny Barker's birthday, this year's festival was postponed due to the covid surge at that time. Happily, most of the featured artists and events originally set for the festival in January this year were able to be rescheduled.

The 2022 festival will also honor two other stalwarts of New Orleans music and culture with deep connections to Danny Barker’s legacy: Hot 8 Brass Band co-founder and sousaphonist Bennie Pete and jazz historian Don Marquis (In Search of Buddy Bolden), both of whom passed away in 2021. Festival attendees can also see a special screening of Jason Berry’s acclaimed documentary City of a Million Dreams followed by a panel discussion with director Jason Berry and three men featured prominently in the film (Fred Johnson, Gregg Stafford, and Dr. Michael White) on Thursday, March 17 at 4pm in the Jazz Museum’s third floor performance center (by admission - $10). 

The mission of the Danny Barker Banjo and Guitar Festival is to showcase and highlight the many contributions and accomplishments of NEA Jazz Master Danny Barker: a musician, singer, songwriter, educator, raconteur extraordinaire, and author who played guitar and banjo with many top jazz artists over the course of his 70 year plus career and served as a mentor to numerous young New Orleans artists who have since come to prominence, including Wynton Marsalis, Herlin Riley, Leroy Jones, Gregg Stafford, and Dr. Michael White. 

SCHEDULE

LIVE MUSIC AT JAZZ MUSEUM MARCH 18

^{BY ADMISSION - $15} 

^{PERFORMANCE CENTER STAGE (third floor)} 

^{11:30 am – Tom McDermott and Meschiya Lake 
12:30 pm – Steve Pistorius Band 
1:30 pm – Wendell Brunious Band 
2:30 pm – Herlin Riley Quartet 
3:30 pm – George and Gerald French Band} 

^{COURTYARD STAGE} 

^{11 am – Shannon Powell Quartet 
12 pm – Charmaine Neville Band 
1 pm – Mark Brooks Quartet 
2 pm – Gregg Stafford and the Jazz Hounds 
3pm – Don Vappie and grioTrio 
4 pm – Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers} 

LIVE MUSIC AT NPS FRENCH QUARTER VISITOR CENTER – 419 DECATUR STREET MARCH 19

^{FREE ADMISSION} 

^{11:00 am – Jamil Sharif Quartet 
12:00 pm – Les Getrex Band 
1:00 pm – Al “Carnival Time” Johnson 
2:00 pm – The Lawrence Cotton Experience 
3:00 pm – Jimmy “Bean” Bellero Trio 
4:00 pm – Joe Hall and the Cane Cutters} 

 LIVE MUSIC AT JAZZ MUSEUM MARCH 20

^{BY ADMISSION - $15} 

^{PERFORMANCE CENTER STAGE (third floor)} 

^{11:30 am – Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony 
12:30 pm – Sharon Martin and the Danny Barker Tribute Band 
1:30 pm – Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes and band 
2:30 pm – Mari Watanabe Band 
3:30 pm – Steve Masakowski and the Masakowski Family Band} 

^{COURTYARD STAGE (March 20th)} 

^{12 pm – Seva Venet Band 
1 pm – John Boutte 
2pm – Mahmoud Chouki Trio 
4pm – Treme Brass Band with Black Men of Labor and Baby Dolls} 

TALKIN’ DANNY BARKER 

Two days of great stories about – and (on tape) from Danny Barker – plus highlights of Danny and Blu Lu Barker’s recorded canon – in the New Orleans Jazz Museum’s Education Center 

FRIDAY, MARCH 18

12pm – Danny Barker Talks and Plays – Select excerpts from a half dozen interviews with Danny Barker – plus a sampling of great recordings by Danny and Blu Lu Barker – with radio producer and host Fred Kasten. 

1pm –A 21^st Century Creole Jazz Serenader – Guitarist, banjoist, vocalist, composer, bandleader and musicologist: Don Vappie is all these things, and puts his own spin on the multi-faceted approach to music and culture that Danny Barker so brilliantly represented. He discusses his life in music with journalist and author Keith Spera. 

2pm – Danny Barker: Cultural Advocate and Educator – Community activist Fred Johnson and educator Jonathan Bloom talk with Fred Kasten about Danny Barker’s legacy as an ambassador of and advocate for New Orleans culture – and as an educator. 

3pm – Danny and Blu Lu Barker Take on the Big Apple – In their three plus decades on the scene in New York City, Danny and Blu Lu Barker were important members of a creative community that included Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Danny’s uncle Paul Barbarin, and Barbarin’s song-writing partner Luis Russell.  Grammy-winning vocalist Catherine Russell (Luis Russell’s daughter) and jazz historian Paul Kahn join us by video to discuss the Barkers’ time in NYC and creative connections there with Fred Kasten. 

4pm – Video Danny and Blu Lu – will feature selections from the Danny and Blu Lu Barker Collection at Tulane University Special Collections. Melissa A. Weber, curator of the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, will conduct a video tour of the collection and filmmaker Matt Martinez will present select video segments with the Barkers. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 20

12 noon – Danny, Jelly Roll and the Dirty Dozen – Grammy-winning producer Scott Billington discusses his forthcoming book Making Tracks: A Record Producer’s Southern Roots Music Journey with Fred Kasten, reads portions of it dealing with time in the studio with Danny Barker working on two Dirty Dozen Brass Band recordings - Jelly and The New Orleans Album – and plays taped highlights of his interviews with Danny Barker during those sessions. 

1pm – Herlin Riley: “Perpetual Optimism” and paying forward the legacy of Danny Barker – New Orleans rhythm master Herlin Riley discusses Danny Barker’s profound impact on his life and career – and ways he tries to pass it on – with journalist, author and host of public radio’s Music Inside Out – Gwen Thompkins. 

2pm - Gregg Stafford, Danny Barker and the Jazz Hounds – Trumpeter and vocalist Gregg Stafford discusses his long association with Danny and Blu Lu Barker – from the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band to the Jazz Hounds and beyond – with long-time WWOZ jazz programmer and host Sally Young. 

3pm – Danny Barker: His legacy is marching on! – Clarinetist, composer and educator Dr. Michael White and composer and educator Roger Dickerson discuss Danny Barker’s on-going legacy in New Orleans and beyond with interviewer and producer Fred Kasten. 

4pm – Tribute to author and New Orleans Jazz Museum founder Don Marquis – Jazz historian Charles Chamberlain, retired steamboat captain and calliope player Doc Hawley, writer and film director Daniel Pritzker (Bolden), and curator Patrick Burns discuss with Fred Kasten the many contributions to the documenting of jazz in New Orleans and New Orleans culture made by late (passed away July 29, 2021 at age 88) author, historian and Jazz Museum founder Don Marquis.