traditional New Orleans jazz
New Orleans, Louisiana
Photo courtesy of artist
In New Orleans’ parlance, “professors” are the great jazz musicians, the individuals who define the tradition in the Crescent City. As one of the leading exemplars of the city’s rich jazz clarinet sound, Dr. Michael White is without question a “professor”; yet he can also claim that title as a long-time university faculty member and an eminent scholar of African American music, as well as a prominent figure in the preservation and dissemination of traditional New Orleans jazz, contributing to the city’s vibrant and distinctive musical heritage.
Born in New Orleans in 1954, White took up clarinet as a teenager, playing in the famous St. Augustine High School Marching 100. While in college, he fell in love with traditional New Orleans jazz. Driven by his interest in the music’s rich melodic intricacies and playful dialogue between instruments, he dedicated his extracurricular hours to seeking out the tutelage of older musicians like Kid Thomas Valentine, Louis Nelson, and Danny Barker, and playing social club parades and jazz funerals with Doc Paulin’s Brass Band, all while earning a doctorate in Spanish. Dr. White taught at Xavier University for over four decades, where he held the Keller Endowed Chair in the Humanities, and has been professor emeritus since 2023.
Among his many accolades, Dr. White was awarded the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in 2008, the highest honor this country bestows on traditional artists. His musical activities are worldwide, with credits ranging from Jazz at Lincoln Center to producing a New Orleans music celebration at the 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In addition to his work with other New Orleans jazz greats, White has over a dozen of his own recordings, including compositions meditating on the history of New Orleans jazz in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. His work to sustain and reinvigorate the city’s musical traditions earned him the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities “Humanist of the Year” award in 2010 and the 2015 Jazz Hero award from the Jazz Journalists Association of America. In 2023, Dr. White was added to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, highlighting his lifelong dedication to preserving traditional New Orleans jazz. He is acclaimed for his clarinet playing, which although original, was derived from the rich-toned, melodic, and rhythmic Afro-Creole clarinet styles of NOLA legends like Johnny Dodds and Sidney Bechet.
White’s friend, protégé, and long-time collaborator, Wynton Marsalis, eloquently explains that Michael White presents this music “… not as the stereotypical ‘Dixieland,’ but as something deeper and richer, textured by the blues—he has highlighted the creative tension of both dignity and flamboyance that characterizes the music at its best.” Gambit Weekly further links the two: “No other jazz artist, save for Wynton Marsalis, has approached early jazz as something ripe for aesthetic dialogue, challenging time-tested standards with new works to expand the canon.”
Since the 1980s, Dr. White has travelled the United States and abroad, performing in nearly three dozen countries with his own groups: the Original Liberty Jazz Band, the Liberty Brass Band, and the quartet coming to Richmond. These began as ensembles connecting younger players with first-generation masters then in their 70s and 80s; as those elders have passed on, these ensembles became a showcase for many of their descendants, both literal and spiritual. The Dr. Michal White Quartet features a stellar lineup with Seva Venet on banjo, Gregory Stafford on trumpet, and Tyler Thompson on upright bass. Over four decades of a spectacular career, Dr. White has solidified his position not just as a preeminent jazz scholar, but also a dazzling musician whose mastery of New Orleans jazz is sure to delight audiences in Richmond and beyond.