Michael P. Smith, a native
of New Orleans,
is more than a highly accomplished
photographer, although -- as these photos attest -- he certainly is
that. He's
currently the assistant director of the Professor Longhair Foundation,
whose
mandate is to keep alive the memory of Henry Roeland Byrd and his
contribution
to the music of New Orleans, as well as
to see
that the keyboard tradition of New
Orleans is understood and promoted properly. He
was
also one of the founders of Tipitina's, the famous night club that
bears the
name of Fess's popular tune. Since 1966, when he became a staff
photographer
for the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archives at Tulane University,
he has used photography as an art expression and a tool for examining
American
society. His explorations into the lively New Orleans street culture - its
second-line
parades and jazz funerals, its clubs and vernacular spirit churches -
are
documented in four books, all available from Pelican Publishing of
Gretna,
Louisiana. His work has been displayed at and resides in the permanent
collections of museums and important archives around the world (such as
the Museum of American History
(Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
the
Historic New Orleans Collection, and the Bibliothèque National, Paris.
Books:
A Joyful Noise - A celebration of
New Orleans Music (1989)
Jazz Fest - A pictorial history of
the New Orleans Jazz Festival (1990)
Spirit World - Patterns of
expressive folk culture of Afro-American New Orleans (1992)
Mardi Gras Indians (1994)
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