Michael White | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Born | New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. | November 29, 1954
Genres | Jazz, traditional New Orleans jazz |
Occupation(s) | Musician, educator |
Instrument | Clarinet |
Labels | Basin Street, Antilles, 504 |
Michael White (born November 29, 1954, in New Orleans) is a jazz clarinetist, bandleader, composer, jazz historian and musical educator. Jazz critic Scott Yanow said in a review that White "displays the feel and spirit of the best New Orleans clarinetists". [1]
White was raised Catholic in New Orleans (by a father who was a Knight of Peter Claver), and attended a number of Black Catholic schools in the city, including Saint Francis de Sales, Holy Ghost, and St Joan of Arc. While at the latter school, he studied clarinet and played in his first parade. [2] [3]
White is a classically trained musician who began his jazz musical career as a teenager playing for Doc Paulin's Brass Band in New Orleans. He was a member of an incarnation of the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, established by banjoist Danny Barker. He was discovered by Kid Sheik Colar, who heard him performing in Jackson Square in the French Quarter. White began working regularly with Colar. White can be heard on the 1989 album The Majesty of the Blues by Wynton Marsalis. [4] Marsalis appears on White's 1990 album Crescent City Serenade with Wendell Brunious and Walter Payton.
Since 1979 White has played in the Young Tuxedo Brass Band, founded by clarinetist John Casimir sometime in the 1940s. [5] During the 1980s he led a band called The New Orleans Hot Seven. Performing "A Tribute to Jelly Roll Morton" in concert with them at the Lincoln Center in New York City in 1989 led to a favorable review by Jon Pareles in The New York Times . On May 25, 2004, a selection from White's album Dancing in the Sky ("Algiers Hoodoo Woman") was broadcast on NPR's All Songs Considered . [6] The Dancing in the Sky album is mostly original compositions by White.
In 1981, White founded The Original Liberty Jazz Band to preserve the musical heritage of New Orleans. The group has performed an end-of-year concert at the Village Vanguard every year since the early 1990s. [7] On May 13, 2006, White performed "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" at the Tulane University commencement ceremony. Former U.S. presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton were in attendance at the ceremony. Clinton said that the music "was played the way Dixieland bands have always done it. At first low, weeping, sorrowful." [8]
White is also a college professor who formerly taught Spanish, now teaching African-American music at Xavier University of Louisiana, [9] an historically black university. At the university, he holds the Rosa and Charles Keller Endowed Chair in the Humanities of New Orleans Music and Culture. He has also served as guest director at several Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts relating to traditional New Orleans jazz, often working with Wynton Marsalis. White has also served as a commissioner for the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. [10]
White was living in a one-story home in the Gentilly district of New Orleans, near the London Avenue Canal during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. White was a collector of jazz artifacts and local history for 30 years. He owned the original sheet music of "Dead Man Blues" by Jelly Roll Morton, a clarinet mouthpiece by Sidney Bechet, and an estimated 5,000 records and LPs which were lost during the flooding. [9]
Year | Album | Notes | Label |
---|---|---|---|
2012 | Adventures in New Orleans Jazz, Part 2 | - | Basin Street |
2011 | Adventures in New Orleans Jazz, Part 1 | - | Basin Street |
2008 | Blue Crescent | - | Basin Street |
2005 | Our New Orleans: A Benefit Album for the Gulf Coast | - | Nonesuch |
2005 | Songs of New Orleans: Preservation Hall Jazz Band | Preservation Hall album | Preservation Hall |
2004 | Dancing in the Sky | Basin Street | |
2002 | Jazz From the Soul of New Orleans | - | Basin Street |
2000 | A Song For George Lewis | - | Basin Street |
2000 | A Tribute to Johnny Dodds | - | Jazz Crusade |
2000 | Dance @ the Dew Drop | - | GHB |
2000 | Shake It and Break It (expanded reissue) | - | 504 |
1992 | New Year's Eve Live at the Village Vanguard | - | Antilles |
1990 | Crescent City Serenade | - | Antilles |
1989 | The Majesty of the Blues | - | Columbia |
1987 | Shake It and Break It | - | 504 |
1984 | T'Ain't Nobody's Business | - | 504 |
1983 | Jazz Continues: Young Tuxedo Brass Band | - | 504 |
The discography used allmusicguide.com as one guide.
Charles Joseph "Buddy" Bolden was an American cornetist who was regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of ragtime music, or "jass", which later came to be known as jazz.
Wynton Learson Marsalis is an American trumpeter, composer, and music instructor, who is currently the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has been active in promoting classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, and his oratorio Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Marsalis is the only musician to have won a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical categories in the same year.
The music of Louisiana can be divided into three general regions: rural south Louisiana, home to Creole Zydeco and Old French, New Orleans, and north Louisiana. The region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The music of the northern portion of the state starting at Baton Rouge and reaching Shreveport has similarities to that of the rest of the US South.
Jason Marsalis is an American jazz drummer, vibraphone player, composer, producer, band leader, and member of the Marsalis family of musicians. He is the youngest son of Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis and the late Ellis Marsalis, Jr.
Marthaniel "Marcus" Roberts is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and teacher.
Alvin Batiste Sr. was an American avant-garde jazz clarinetist, who was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. He taught at his own jazz institute at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. was an American jazz pianist and educator. Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of the musical Marsalis family, when sons Branford and Wynton became popular jazz musicians.
Herlin Riley is an American jazz drummer and a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra led by Wynton Marsalis.
Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He has also written two operas and more than 80 film and television scores. Blanchard has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Original Score for BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods, both directed by Spike Lee, a frequent collaborator.
Daniel Moses Barker was an American jazz musician, vocalist, and author from New Orleans. He was a rhythm guitarist for Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter during the 1930s.
Delfeayo Marsalis is an American jazz trombonist, record producer and educator.
Wycliffe A. Gordon is an American jazz trombonist, arranger, composer, band leader, and music educator at the collegiate-conservatory level. Gordon also sings and plays didgeridoo, trumpet, soprano trombone, tuba, and piano. His nickname is "Pinecone".
Troy Andrews, also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is a musician, most notably a trombone player, from New Orleans, Louisiana. His music fuses rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop.
The music of New Orleans assumes various styles of music which have often borrowed from earlier traditions. New Orleans, Louisiana, is especially known for its strong association with jazz music, universally considered to be the birthplace of the genre. The earliest form was dixieland, which has sometimes been called traditional jazz, 'New Orleans', and 'New Orleans jazz'. However, the tradition of jazz in New Orleans has taken on various forms that have either branched out from original dixieland or taken entirely different paths altogether. New Orleans has also been a prominent center of funk, home to some of the earliest funk bands such as The Meters.
The Majesty of the Blues is an album by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis that was released in 1989.
Victor Louis Goines is a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist who has served as president and chief executive officer of Jazz St. Louis since September 2022. From 2000 to 2007, he was director of the jazz program at Juilliard.
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque. From 1992 to 1995 he led the Tonight Show Band.
Shannon Powell is an American jazz and ragtime drummer. He has toured internationally and played with Ellis Marsalis, Harry Connick, Jr., Danny Barker, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Diana Krall, Earl King, Dr. John, Preservation Hall, Marcus Roberts, John Scofield, Jason Marsalis, Leroy Jones, Nicholas Payton, and Donald Harrison Jr. Powell toured and recorded with fellow New Orleans native, Harry Connick Jr.
Standard Time, Vol. 6: Mr. Jelly Lord is an album by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis that was released in 1999. The album peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart.