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Rebecca Barry & the Headhunters

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Always pick your friends up at the airport when they call. Rebecca Barry, one of the city’s leading tenor sax blowers and a solid singer to boot, did just that when Los Hombres Calientes pianist Victor “Red” Atkins rang, and for her trouble she wound up with the rhythm section from Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, the band that brought jazz-funk fusion to the masses in the early ’70s. There aren’t many surprises during the course of the self-titled CD born of that meeting, but it’s not a bad fit, either.

The irony is that it’s Atkins who really sticks out: his ivory tickling is the centerpiece of the album’s mood, with Barry’s horn and the continuing mastery of Headhunter Mike Clark (one of hip-hop’s most sampled drummers) playing more or less supporting roles. The ten original selections here don’t contain much noodling, either, aside from the closing jam on “Loft Funk”; usually, the ’hunters set up a pleasant yet busy backbeat, Victor fills in the cracks, and Barry slides cerebrally around the top with coffeehouse-wise tributes to Gotham (“New York Minute”), treatises on “Poverty” and “Addiction,” and warnings about “Mind Games” and “The War Within.” This conglomerate operates from a ’70s jazz-pop aesthetic, so serious stick-up-the-ass jazz fans may scoff. And, yeah, it won’t make you forget “Vein Melter.” But as a happy bit of synchronicity, this meeting of the minds is at least as warm and professional as it is ultimately inconsequential. And there’s something to be said for that.

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.

Mobile Press Register
by Thomas B. Harrison