Danny Barker Banjo and Guitar Festival Grand Finale

Join us at the New Orleans Jazz Museum on Sunday, January 14 from 11am to 5pm for the Danny Barker Banjo & Guitar Festival Grand Finale, featuring a wide range of activities both inside and outside the museum, including:

11am – 1pm – DANNY BARKER IN SOUND AND IMAGE – Interviewer Fred Kasten plays highlights from an extensive set of interviews with Danny Barker – and conducts a live interview with former Fairview Baptist Church Christian Band member Dr. Michael White – followed by historic video segments featuring Danny and Blue Lu Barker – presented by filmmaker Matt Martinez.

1pm – 5pm – music on 3 stages (two inside – one outside) – including sets from John Boutte, Steve Pistorius, the UNO Jazz Ensemble (featuring Steve Masakowski), Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony, Charmaine Neville and Amasa Miller, Claude Carre, Kermit Ruffins, Leroy Jones Quintet, George French, and more.

All day admission to the festival is only $5.00. Tickets are available online here or at the door.

Event Performers

Dr. Michael White clarinet

Dr. Michael White

clarinet

Dr. Michael White is a jazz clarinetist, bandleader, composer, jazz historian and musical educator. Scott Yanow, a jazz critic, said in a review that White "displays the feel and spirit of the best New Orleans clarinetists."

Kermit Ruffins

“We Partyin’!” Kermit Ruffins needs only two words to hype a New Orleans barroom for one of his weekly shows, and this, his personal slogan, sums up what this Big Easy ambassador is all about.

George French

Amasa Miller

Amasa has been hailed as “one of the most sought after pianists in the city, and one of the freshest contributors to the New Orleans tradition.”

Charmaine Neville

As the daughter of one of the highly acclaimed Neville Brothers, Charmaine is heir to a rich New Orleans musical legacy but is busy putting her own stamp on this musical heritage. Neville and her band dish out a spicy mix of the best of New Orleans music, from the nastiest of blues to some V-8-driven R & B. Add a funky rhythm and some jazzy ballads, and you've got yourself one helluva Crescent City gumbo!

Topsy Chapman

Topsy Chapman is one of New Orleans' finest singers, adept at gospel, blues, rhythm and blues and jazz. Her trio Solid Harmony — with daughters Yolanda Windsay and Jolynda Phillips — is one of the best, most soulful vocal harmony groups working today.

John Boutte

On Sundays, John Boutte was awakened by the sounds of his New Orleans neighborhood. Past the front yard, second-line parades rolled by, matching the madness of Carnival season and the transcendent joy of the jazz funeral. This roux of influences created John Boutte, and serves him to this day.

Steve Pistorius

Steve Pistorius has the distinction of being the only living New Orleanian who specializes in early Jazz piano. Whether playing solo or leading a band, he creates joyful and swinging renditions of oft-neglected rags, waltzes, marches, pop tunes, blues and stomps.

Leroy Jones Trumpet

Leroy Jones

Trumpet

The legendary jazz trumpeter Leroy Jones is known to music lovers as the "keeper of the flame" for traditional New Orleans jazz and to critics as one of the top musicians ever produced by the Crescent City.