Bill Barber

Bill Barber, 87; Jazz Tuba Player

Source: All About Jazz
July 2, 2007

Bill Barber, a musician who helped refashion the jazz tuba from its predictable oompah passages to suit the complex melodies and rhythms of Miles Davis and other postwar jazz modernists, died of congestive heart failure June 18 at his home in Bronxville, N.Y. He was 87. A fixture of many early jazz bands, the tuba was largely reduced to a jazz relic by the early 1930s as sound technology improved. The upright bass took the place of the booming brass ...
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