Photo Attribute: Cover of New Orleans' Sweet Emma And Her Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
There is a difference between skill and talent. To be slightly simplistic, a skill can be taught and learned, while talent is innate. Talent usually won’t get you fair unless you develop skills to improve. All the talent in the world won’t get you a job or recognition if others simply refuse to acknowledge you. But just because you get recognized, that doesn’t mean you want worldwide fame. “Sweet” Emma Barrett could have had a huge career in jazz, but she preferred her home city to everywhere else.
Barrett was born on March 25, 1890, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her father was William B. Barrett, who served in the 74th Colored Regiment organized in New Orleans during the American Civil War, primarily defending the city for the Union.
By the age of 7, Barrett began to play the piano without any instruction. She had an innate ability to transpose by ear, which made jazz ideal music to showcase her talent. By the age of 12, she was singing in clubs around New Orleans. It was during her youth that she developed a style that earned her the nickname “Bell Gal,” because she wore red garters and a red skull cap decorated with bells that jingled in time with her playing.
Jazz was becoming more and more popular when Barrett began her professional career as a pianist and singer. In her 20s, she joined Oscar Celestin's Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra in 1923 until it split up in 1928. From 1928 to 1936 she played on and off with Bebe Ridgeley's Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra, while she also played with other bandleaders like Sidney Desvigne, Armand Piron, and John Robichauz. Though she was often targeted and overlooked because she was a woman, her “sweet” nature won over the men she worked with and for. Yet, for some reason, she stopped playing and singing professionally from 1938 to 1947; perhaps it had something to do with the Second World War, but it is unclear, and she would have been only in her 40s and 50s at that time.
In 1947, she took a job at Happy Landing, in Pecaniere, Louisiana. She continued to play and sign with other bandleaders like Percy Humphrey and Israel Gorman in the 1950s. She developed an intense, blunt style of playing the piano and was known for her ability to deliver the double entendres common in jazz lyrics with perfect timing and attitude while maintaining her “sweet” demeanor on and off stage, even though she was also known to be quick witted and a bit demanding in her later years.
By 1960 she had her own band of local experienced musicians called Sweet Emma and the Bells; the “Sweet” referred to her personality as a performer and a person. In 1961, she and her band recorded their first album, Riverside Records New Orleans: The Living Legends; it was Barrett’s first recording of her singing as well, though most of the album was instrumental. During this decade she also was the pianist for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, performing live and recording with them. The band went on tour to Minnesota in 1963 and again in 1964 through Jazz Sponsors, created by Henry Blackburn, who wanted to bring jazz to Minneapolis.
The albums, as well as a cover on Glamour Magazine and a stint at Disneyland, brought Barrett tours around the world at a time when New Orleans-style jazz was gaining international attention. If you watch the 1965 movie The Cincinnati Kid, starring Steve McQueen, you will see Barrett playing with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with a close-up of her singing and playing piano. As “Sweet Emma,” Barrett also appeared on the television series “Jazz Party” in 1958 and in the 1969 film Love is a Funny Thing. However, she continued to favor her home city of New Orleans for regular gigs. This was important after she suffered a stroke in 1967 that rendered her left side paralyzed. Still, she continued to perform in her red and her bells until her death on January 28, 1983, at the age of 85. During her career, Barrett recorded six albums and today is considered a legend in New Orleans as well as in jazz.