Dr. Michael White is one of New Orleans' finest clarinetists and one of the world's greatest traditional jazz musicians. Classically-trained, and related to early jazz notables Papa John Joseph and "Kaiser" Willie Joseph, among others, he began his musical career in New Orleans as a teenager playing for Doc Paulin's Brass Band. Later, he was a member of the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, established by legendary banjoist Danny Barker, and in 1981, he founded the Original Liberty Jazz Band with the intent of preserving the New Orleans' musical heritage. He cites influences such as clarinetists George Lewis, Sidney Bechet and Johnny Dodds.

When he is not fulfilling his role as a music professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, he performs locally and nationally with his Original Liberty Jazz Band, Liberty Brass Band and Michael White Quartet. He has appeared on recordings by Wynton Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, aside from his own.

As a jazz historian and musicologist, White owned a collection of New Orleans music artifacts (including the original sheet music of Dead Man Blues by Jelly Roll Morton, a clarinet mouthpiece by Sidney Bechet, and a collection of 5,000 LPs) that, unfortunately, was lost in the catastrophic flooding that took place during Hurricane Katrina. White has said that jazz music in New Orleans will become strengthened by the experience of Katrina, and that a sense of fervor has and will rise out of the catastrophe.

To purchase advance tickets: visit the CAC (900 Camp St.) from 11am-4pm; click here; or call the CAC Box Office at 504-528-3800. On day of show, tickets can also be purchased in person from 11 a.m. to one-half hour after curtain.