Dr. Michael White Blue Crescent (Basin Street)

To record these new tunes, he assembled longtime members of his Original Liberty Jazz Band, standard-bearers including trumpeter Greg Stafford and trombonist Lucien Barbarin. And he invited New Orleans natives such as trumpeter Nicholas Payton, who plays sparkling lines on this CD.

Familiar Crescent City elements anchor each composition: the parade beat beneath "King of the Second Line"; the propulsive ragtime feel of "London Canal Breakdown"; the Spanish and French Caribbean dance passages within "Ooh La La (Danse Créole)." "Katrina," the album's only explicit evocation of tragedy and its most arresting track, arrives as a dirge, scored for jazz ensemble rather than the more customary brass band. It reflects a renewed relevance of the dirge in Dr. White's hometown, not to mention the promise of transcendence through collective improvisation.