The History Of Music Inn

In July 1950, Alan Lomax, Rev. Gary Davis, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger were the first performers to play to a small audience of about fifty guests. The country pipes ran out of water that night, and the Barbers had to send their guests to their rooms with bottles of ginger ale to flush the toilets. Despite several incidents, the new innkeepers persevered and created a haven for musicians and music lovers alike.

The Barbers initially invited jazz and folk artists to perform for their other guests, and they invited Professor Marshall Stearns to talk about jazz and musical traditions. The interaction among the musicians, audience, and Stearns led to formal discussions called “Jazz and Folk Roundtables” and later to the “Jazz Workshops,” which explored the roots and nuances of jazz. Music Inn quickly gained a reputation in the jazz and folk communities as a place where musicians could bring their families and enjoy a relaxed environment where people were genuinely interested in their music and what they had to say about it. Randy Weston, who wrote some of his best-known material there, still calls the place "my second spiritual home." While the rest of the nation lived under the weight of segregation, the participants at Music Inn enjoyed a temporary escape, proving again that music knows no colors.

Traditional jazz musicians and next generation musicians talked and played together often for the first time and discovered in these sessions that though their styles were totally unalike, their roots were the same. As Charles Mingus discovered with joy and surprise, “I have roots, man, I have roots!” Innovation was also praised. After musicologist Dr. Willis James sang an African work song in 5/4 time he hailed participant Dave Brubeck who was performing songs in that meter even though the prevailing time signature was 4/4. “The Dave Brubeck Quartet is on the right track!” Willis exclaimed.

The popularity of the “Roundtable” discussions and performances intensified among musicians who eagerly accepted the invitation to come with their families as guests of the Barbers. In 1955 the Barbers set up a theatre of 900 seats in the courtyard of the hay barn to accommodate larger audiences. The Berkshire Music Barn became the first venue of its kind devoted solely to the presentation of jazz and folk. Using contacts and connections gathered from the years of “Roundtables”, Stephanie was able to program summer concerts featuring the very top artists of the day, like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. (See Appendix for list of Performers).

A kind of magic was captured at Music Inn. Musicians who had never played anywhere but in loud, smoky clubs and bars were given attention and respect at last. As Stephanie Barber once noted, "It was the first theater for jazz where people weren't drinking and talking--they were paying attention to the music -- that was, oh, so marvelous."