About

DJ Barrett is a visual artist and musician. Born and raised in Norfolk, CT, he has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, western Massachusetts, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Houston, Texas, and now in Albuquerque, NM.

After several decades of work as an improvising musician, composer, and producer, Barrett's evolution as a visual artist reflects a keen interest in the intersection between improvisation and composition.

He works in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, drawing, collage, assemblage, and mixed media, with a special affinity for vernacular materials such as wood, cardboard, wire, and metal.  As a self-taught artist, he follows his own instincts rather than subscribing to any particular artistic tradition.

Barrett studied music at Indiana University until he and his three older brothers formed the seminal San Francisco new wave band No Sisters in the late 1970s. The band opened concerts for the Ramones, the B52s, Joe Jackson, the Psychedelic Furs, Sparks, Oingo Boingo, the Blasters, the Rubinoos, Wilson Pickett, and Martha Reeves, among others. They played a private concert for Mick Jagger that was filmed by director Hal Ashby, and were featured in Rolling Stone magazine. A popular headliner in clubs throughout California, the band’s own opening acts included then-fledgling artists such as Chris Isaak, the Go-Gos, and Romeo Void. They released two singles before calling it a day. Later, Barrett joined Ralph Records recording artists Club Foot Orchestra, best known for reviving the lost art of performing live original soundtracks with classic silent films. In the late ‘80s he formed the post-modern improv group The Splatter Trio, recording five influential cds on the Rastascan label.

Barrett’s saxophone resume also includes credits with legendary artists in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico, including the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Butch Morris, Sam Rivers, Tim Berne, Myra Melford, Magos Herrera, Banda Elastica, Vinny Golia, the Dead Kennedys, Snakefinger, Univers Zero, Randee of the Redwoods, Mr. Bungle, Mamie Van Doren, Ed Mann, Michael Bisio, Todd Reynolds, and Bobby Kapp (as well as many not-so-legendary artists whom he hopes will forgive him for not naming them in this already tedious list). Interdisciplinary collaborations include poets Steve Benson, Ted Pearson, Norman Fischer, Carla Harryman, and Andrew Levy, painter Leigh Hyams, and an array of Bay Area theater artists and dance companies.

Barrett also had a parallel career in nonprofit arts management, serving as Director of Development for organizations including the California Shakespeare Festival, SFJAZZ, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.

"The useless and the futile open in our experience real intervals of aesthetic humility."   -- Fernando Pessoa