Barbara Morrison, Bootsie Barnes LIVE JazzPerformance

[Randy Watson]

BARBARA MORRISON Originally from Detroit, Barbara Morrison's twenty-year career as a performer and recording artist includes appearances worldwide with some of the greatest names in jazz: Ray Brown, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Collette, Joe Williams, Gerald Wiggins, Jimmy Witherspoon, Hank Crawford, Eddie Harris, Nancy Wilson, David T. Walker and Jimmy Smith. BOOTSIE BARNES began his musical career on piano at age six, switching to drums at 10. His grandmother gave him a saxophone at the age of nineteen, and he knew he had found his niche. In school, classmates included drummers Lex Humphries, Bill Cosby, and Al "Tootie" Heath; bassist "Spanky" DeBrest, trumpeter Lee Morgan, and a host of Philadelphia giants who went on to help shape the maturing sound of jazz music. Those who had the biggest influence on him were his father, who played trumpet with Bill Doggett’s sixteen-piece big band, and his cousin Jimmy Hamilton, saxophonist and star clarinetist of Duke Ellington’s band for twenty-six years.