The Sound after the Storm

Three years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is part ghost town and part third world country. Well known musicians Lillian Boutté, Dr. Michael White and photographer Armand "Sheik" Richardson use jazz to as a philosophy and tool to save themselves and their abandoned, crumbling city. The Sound After the Storm tells a story in which this "music born of slavery" is reborn in response to Katrina's devastation. Given the title of "Jazz Ambassador of New Orleans," Singer Lillian Boutté was the second jazz legend, since Louis Armstrong, in her city's history to be accorded this honor. Like Armstrong, Boutté brings the exuberance and warmth of New Orleans to audiences across America and Europe with her music, while also ringing out the yet unanswered distress calls of her city. The New Orleans spirit reflected in the records of Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong is alive and well in a crowded club filled with the sounds of Dr. Michael White's clarinet. Dr. White, arguably the foremost traditional New Orleans jazz historian and clarinetist, possessed one of America's most thorough collections of jazz artifacts, including vintage instruments, original sheet music and one of a kind recordings. This irreplaceable collection now lies in moldy heaps on the floor of Dr. White's house near a major levee break, leaving him homeless and with only his music to turn to. (official distributor synopsis)