Music has always surrounded the life of Blue Lu Barker. The living room of her Sere Street home is filled with the mementos of a lifetime of jazz she shared with her husband, the late great jazzman Danny Barker. Photos and awards hang and lean from the walls and along table tops. Boxes filled with memorabilia crowd a comer of the low-ceilinged room, while yet another room is devoted entirely to storage of similar treasures.

At 82, vocalist Blue Lu Barker may have retired from the music bus...