Barbara Morrison. Graphic by Brenda López
The music world and Los Angeles lost its “Queen,” legendary jazz and blues singer Ms. Barbara Morrison, on March 16. The world of music in Los Angeles will be quieter for her loss. Yet, Barbara leaves the city richer in cultural assets from her contributions and the legacy she leaves behind.
Morrison recounted how she earned the title “Queen,” in a 2013 interview with Random Lengths News.
“It was from a man named Larry Gales, who worked with Thelonious Monk,” said Morrison. “I was so young and dumb when I got started in this business because I was trying to sing jazz and I didn’t know who any of the jazz giants were like Miles Davis or Ella Fitzgerald. So they would say, ‘Oh lord, here comes the Queen.’
All the fellas would make fun of me and it just stuck. The other singers in town thought they were calling me Queen because I could sing better than them but that wasn’t why. They were calling me Queen because I was too dumb to know anybody. That’s when I knew I had to go to school to learn and study and find out who these people were that were making me want to sing this music.”
One of Morrison’s greatest gifts was in the way she expressed a song. With a two-and-a-half octave range, Barbara’s vocalizing style — often down to the last echo of a note — seamlessly spanned numbers from The Great American Songbook to improvisational jazz, exuberant blues and R&B classics.
Morrison was a musical force in Los Angeles. Among her many achievements, she was one of the first hires in the mid-’90s by jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell, director of the jazz studies concentration at UCLA, where she taught voice. Additionally, Morrison served as an adjunct professor of global jazz studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
The singer and teacher opened the Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center or BMPAC in 2011 in Leimert Park, tapping the center to launch new artists. In 2016, she opened the California Jazz and Blues Museum to educate the community on LAs prolific jazz performers and provide historical context about California’s influence on the genre. Morrison also taught beginning to advanced music, jazz/blues interpretation and history, acting and concert performing techniques.
There is much more to know about Los Angeles’ ordained queen and three-time Grammy-nominee. In Morrison’s honor, here, find remembrances of the singer, teacher and philanthropist from members of the music community who loved her, throughout Angel City.
Jazz drummer and Producer of the Long Beach Jazz Festival Al Williams, first met Barbara Morrison in 1975 at The Coronet Room, a blues club in Long Beach. Williams recalled Barbara was on stage belting out the sounds of Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington.
“Barbara was slender, sexy, and her voice was warm and sultry,” Williams wrote via email. “She had a personality that would fill a stadium. She had an outstanding sense of humor — kept the audience and the musicians on stage laughing. At that time, I offered her a job at my club, The Jazz Safari, next to the Queen Mary.
“Barbara worked with Johnny Otis, Ray Charles, Ernie Andrews, James Moody, among others. She toured internationally — a salute to jazz and blues — with the Phillip Morris big band, gathering a global following, creating a huge fan base that earned her international fame and allowed her to travel back to Europe with her own band many times.”
Williams noted that eventually, around the late seventies, she asked him to work with her. And that was the beginning of a deep friendship — like a sister and brother relationship — a mutual love, respect and support of each others’ musical projects which lasted all of her lifetime.
“When I began performing at the Easter Jazz Sunrise Service at First Lutheran Church in Carson, I asked Barbara to be the vocalist. She was excited. I changed the lyrics to some church and jazz favorites to spiritually fit with the occasion. Barbara knocked them out of the box!”
Al said Barbara was the strongest person he had ever met.
“She was positive every time she stepped out and she always had a smile on her face, even after having multiple surgeries for diabetes, losing both legs at different times. She was fiercely independent; she learned to drive her own vehicle from gig to gig. She kept on performing.
“She called me one night and talked about opening a jazz and blues club in Leimert Park.
She asked me my thoughts on it and I was skeptical. However, The Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center has been a huge success for more than 16 years. Some of the greatest jazz musicians performed there. She offered singing and dancing classes for the kids who wanted to be performers (YES, INC- Young Educated Singers) teaching them no matter what their financial situation was. Now, some of them are successful performing artists, thanks to her. She also opened the first California Jazz and Blues Museum — photos, history, tributes, memorabilia, etc.
“No matter what the circumstances were in Barbara Morrison’s life, she always had a positive attitude. I will truly miss Barbara’s light-hearted energy and I smile every time I think of her.
Love to my Queen.”
Barnes went on to note that Morrison rolled over major obstacles like they were mole hills. That defeat had no place in her life as she demonstrated resilience and great fortitude smack in the face of adversity.
“She always sang while smiling ear to ear, not an easy feat. She couldn’t help it because her joy in pleasing the crowd would well up and pour out of her even after she sang her last note,” Barnes said.
“She had a way of sing talking … She sang the notes … and there were many, and sang the lyrics, but she spoke directly to you straight from her heart. And we all heard.
She is sorely missed and Queen Barbara Morrison’s name will be forever embedded across the hearts of all who knew and loved her.
Rest my friend, job exceptionally well done.
With loving memories.”
Legendary LA jazz singer, Dwight Trible, called Morrison his comrade, friend and undisputed Queen of blues and jazz singing in Los Angeles.
“I don’t think anyone would dispute that,” Trible said. “The thing that sticks out the most to me, is that Barbara did not discriminate.”
By discriminate, Trible explained that Morrison could be playing at the Hollywood Bowl one night and a family room or some hole in the wall place in Compton the next.
“But she did it with the same zeal and all of her energy that she did when she was at the Hollywood Bowl,” Trible said. “There was no place she would not sing at … from festivals to hole in the walls, storefront churches and everything else. And she did it with all her might all the way to the end. Even when she lost both of her legs to diabetes. She was still singing as good as ever.
“She never made any excuses for herself. She did it with everything she had, which, like all of us know, we have no excuse for why we say we can’t do a certain thing, because she did it to the end with her condition.”
Of Barbara, Lou Mannick, who is known for accompanying jazz bands with his musical saw, said, “Goodness, such a woman as that!
“Barbara was a rolling party. I met her at a house concert when she asked (mid-song) if there were any dancers in the house. I immediately had her in my arms doing dance moves, later to find out she was dancing on artificial legs. True story.
“What can I say? I love Barbara and deeply grieve losing her. When Barbara rolls in, the good times roll on. But now, she’s rolled on. Bye-bye, dear wonderful Barbara Morrison.”
Long Beach based entrepreneur, businessman and musician William (Bill) Grisolia said Barbara was an international force for women, for music, for people of color, for the important music of blues and jazz — a quintessentially American art form which she also took internationally.
“Barbara was awarded the Legend of the Long Beach Blues Award by the New Blues Festival in its second iteration,” Grisolia said. “She blessed us with many performances with her own band and along with Southern California’s Dean of the blues, Bernie Pearl. She was an innovator, an entrepreneur and treated everyone with joy and equanimity.
“During the pandemic, we had the joy of working together at her invitation at her marvelous performing arts center in Leimert Park. These performances were live streamed and I am as proud of that work as anything that I’ve ever done.
“Early on in our relationship she began to call me her blues husband. As a result, the Long Beach Blues Society plans an upcoming tribute which will feature the dean, her collaborator big Llou Johnson, as master of ceremonies, other talents and of course yours truly.
It seems like she helped and entertained a million people. And she did it all against odds that would defeat most.”
Timothy Morganfield, Barbara’s friend and longtime business partner said, “We lost a real jazz legend. [But] to me, I lost a friend, sister and business partner. When you say Leimert Park, you have to say Barbara Morrison.”
Morganfield explained that when he first went to work for Barbara to build her a stage, he described it as a good feeling. When she wrote out his first check, Barbara asked his name.
He told her, “Morganfield.” Her face dropped. She said, “Muddy Waters?”
Morganfield is a descendent of Muddy Waters, born McKinley Morganfield, April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983.
“We put together the Muddy Waters [West Coast] Festival (2017), across from the Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center with Big Bill Morganfield, one of Muddy Waters’ sons.”
In fact, Barbara was mentoring Joseph Mojo Morganfield’s (Water’s youngest son) daughters, Julissa and Bella.
When the pandemic hit and everything shut down, Barbara invested in a live streaming system.
“During the pandemic we streamed more than 60 shows so she could pay her band members,” Morganfield said. “That was her heart, she takes care of musicians.”
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