The Barker Project

Bassist Johnnie Barker calls his band a "musical gumbo," and The Barker Project lives up to it. The group is a rotating collective of three to eleven players that starts from jazz and folds in funk, blues, rock and gospel, reworking familiar songs rather than simply covering them. The Berklee-trained bandleader brings the group back to WSLR+Fogartyville, the community radio station's performance space in the Rosemary District. An earlier lineup there had drummer Rande Sanderbeck, Eric Zabala on vibraphone and keys, Jayden Titus on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Tristan Titus on saxophone. Local audiences also know the band from Sarasota Art Museum's Jazz Thursdays and its recent collaboration with Sarasota Contemporary Dance.