Musician Jazzes up Algiers Artists' Retreat

By Andrea Shaw/Jefferson Report
The Times Picayune, Monday January 26, 2004, Other Opinions

Until recently, the only music coming out of the deep woods of Lower Court Algiers was the river's hum or Mother Nature's symphony of croaking frogs, chirping crickets and screeching owls.

But these days, they are joined by the playful and sweet-sounding clarinet of Michael White. The jazz historian and teacher is composing a piece that pays homage to traditional jazz as an artist-in-residence at A Studio In The Woods.

"There is a lot of confusion as to what New Orleans jazz is. It's not just jazz played in New Orleans. It's a definite style. It's distinctive as gumbo. It's distinctive as the second line dance," he said. "There are certain things that go along with it and there are certain things that don't."

In Algiers, White has immersed himself in the solitude and beauty that the studio offers, gaining inspiration from musicians and history, as well as from the wind rustling through the trees and the birds and turtles that call the pond home. And the ideas for his musical composition are flowing.

"It just opened up something that hadn't been there before," he said of his surroundings. "It puts you not only in front of yourself, but in front of nature. I think it's closer to the root of the music."

That's the mission of A Studio In The Woods, perhaps the only artist retreat in the Deep South, according to its founders Lucianne and Joe Carmichael. They want to transform their eight-acre homesite into a place where artists can meditate and draw inspiration for their work.

"It really validates for us what we believe about the human need to be connected with the natural world and art," Lucianne Carmichael said after hearing White talk about what residency has meant to him. "It's true that music takes its body from the original sounds of the earth, including the human voice, just as drawing and painting and sculpture take their lines and forms and colors from the lines and forms and colors of the natural world."

In some ways, it's only appropriate that White create his work, which has been dubbed "Original Jazz out of the Woods," in Algiers. It is a place that boasts a rich jazz heritage of its own.

"Algiers was very active in the 1920s in jazz," White said. "There were benevolent organizations, parades, funerals, dance halls, dances and many activities that contained a lot of jazz activity."

It is home to trumpeter Red Allen, who joined former rival Louis Armstrong's big band in the late '30s, as well as drummer Freddy Coleman, whose father owned a popular spot for musicians, "Coleman's Tavern," White said. There were also songs about Algiers including "Algiers Strut," "Ferry to Algiers" and "Hoodoo Blues," which talked about being born in Algiers.

White not only wants to make his own personal contribution to traditional jazz with his work, but he hopes to educate and refocus the spotlight on pioneers such as Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Clarence Williams, whose influence is forgotten here at home while revered in Europe and Japan. White's work draws on blues, ragtime, marches and spirituals.

"This is a music of participation. The best participation is dancing," he said. "It makes you think of something or feel something. It's communicating something to you. That's the goal. That's the idea."

White will perform his new music this spring at Jazz Fest and at Xavier University. And, he will present "Original Jazz Out of the Woods" at a free riverfront concert May 23 at 4 p.m. in the Algiers Point - Riverview neighborhood.

Lucianne Carmichael said White's free concert will not only honor traditional jazz's founding fathers and their families, but will tell the metro area about what a valuable resource A Studio In The Woods is for the community.

Said White of his experience, "Whatever happened out here opened up a whole other world. It's a new world that is special and magical. And magic comes out," he said of his music. "It's honest and it's me."

(Andrea Shaw is West Bank bureau chief. She can be reached at ashaw@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3780).

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