Rebecca Barry, a tenor sax player from Fairhope, Alabama, will open the 30th Annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with an hour-long set in the BET Jazz Tent.
Although she is no stranger to Jazz Fest, this is Ms. Barry's initial appearance with her quartet, which has been together about a year. The group includes pianist Victor Atkins, bassist Bill Huntington and drummer Geoff Clapp. The quartet plays four nights a week at Landry's Seafood House in New Orleans.
Ms. Barry, 24, became interested in jazz at Fairhope High School, but she didn't know how to improvise. She got a music scholarship to Loyola University, where she studied under sax teacher Tony Dagradi. He introduced her to the music of Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young and John Coltrane.
At the University of New Orleans she studied with Ellis Marsalis and saxman Ed Petersen, and she became a regular on the crowded French Quarter music scene.
Ms. Barry plays at Tipitina's and many other jazz hot spots. She has played with Cyril Neville, one of the Nevilles, and plays in a group called Funk Fantasy with Cyril's wife, Gaynielle.
Ms. Barry was asked to play a summer tour of Austria and Italy, so she chose students from the University of New Orleans and spent part of her summer teaching jazz camps in Innsbruck.
From an article
Mobile Press Register
April 23, 1999
by Thomas B. Harrison
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