Guy Barker
b. 26 December 1957, London, England. Barker took up the trumpet as a child and studied formally at the Royal College of Music. One of several brilliant British musicians to come up through the ranks of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Barker attracted media attention both then and after his departure into the wider world of the professional jazz musician. Playing with NYJO at the Cleveland Jazz Festival at Middlesbrough, England, in 1978, he was joined unexpectedly on stage by Clark Terry for a duet, a moment he took in his confident stride. At the age of 20 Barker toured the UK with his own quintet, using young American jazzmen he had met during a visit to New York. Also in the late '70s and early '80s, he played with Mike Westbrook, John Dankworth, Chris Hunter and Hubbard's Cubbard, a jazz-rock group. His major breakthrough came with a spell with Gil Evans, touring and recording, and work with Stan Tracey, Clark Tracey, with whom he toured the Far East, Europe and the UK, and Ornette Coleman. Alongside his jazz work, Barker has appeared as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra and in groups backing Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jnr., Mel Tormé and Liza Minnelli. Simultaneously, he has been busy in film, television and recording studios, playing with Evans on the soundtrack of INSIGNIFICANCE (1985), and on ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS (1986) and THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987). He has also appeared on many rock albums featuring artists such as Paul McCartney, Grace Jones and Joan Armatrading. Throughout the '80s he made numerous jazz record dates with Westbrook, Evans, Stan Tracey's Hexad and big band, Clark Tracey, Peter King, Jim Mullen and the Jack Sharpe Big Band. He has continued this high level of activity into the '90s playing on Sinatra's 1991 tour of the UK, and a tour to Hong Kong with Georgie Fame in a package paying tribute to Chet Baker. There have also been club and festival dates, a series of concerts re-creating the music of Bix Beiderbecke and recording sessions with Carla Bley and with his own quintet. Barker's pure-toned melodic playing allied to a crackling, boppish attack makes his solo work particularly attractive and exhilarating. His wide range of musical interests, evident in his concert tours honouring trumpeters as diverse as Baker and Beiderbecke, has not resulted in his becoming a copyist. Indeed, his highly distinctive playing style is already one of the great joys of jazz in the '90s. Barker's sober on-stage demeanour and dress conceal a vibrant musical personality whose future appears to have no bounds. After Barker's outstanding performance at the 1989 South Bank Jazz Festival at Grimsby, Lincolnshire, Lee Konitz remarked, ‘One day that guy's gonna be a genius.’ That day is already here.