Danny Barker Quotes
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Everything in New Orleans was competitive. People would always be betting on who was the best and the greatest in everything. That's where the battles of music came in.
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The New Orleans bands, you see, didn't play with a flat sound. They'd shade the music. After the band had played with the two or three horns blowing, they'd let the rhythm have it.
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Respect your own creativity and respect the creativity and creative space of other people.
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One of my pleasantest memories as a kid growing up in New Orleans was how a bunch of us kids, playing, would suddenly hear sounds. It was like a phenomenon, like the Aurora Borealis -- maybe. The sounds of men playing would be so clear, but we wouldn't be sure where they were coming from. So we'd start trotting, start running-- 'It's this way! It's this way!' -- And sometimes, after running for a while, you'd find you'd be nowhere near that music. But that music could come on you any time like that. The city was full of the sounds of music.
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Lots of the bands in New Orleans couldn't read too much music. So they used a fiddle to play the lead - a fiddle player could read - and that was to give them some protection.
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I'd advise you to visit New Orleans before you pass away. I really would. Because if you die without seeing New Orleans, you wasted half your life.