HD, color, 52’ + 82’, 2009
by Patrik Soergel, Ryan Fenson-Hood, Sven O.Hill

with: Lilian Boutté, Dr. Michael White, Armand "Sheik" Richardson

coproduction with RSI-Radiotelevisione svizzera, HillFilm, Dirk Manthey Film

original version: English

Premiere Zurich Film Festival 2009 - Best International Documentary Award

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.
The energetic Armand “Sheik” Richardson, part photographer, part activist, part whirlwind, shoots thousands of pictures per week, as he puts it, “to preserve what’s left of New Orleans for future generations.” After years of working hand-and-foot to repair houses destroyed by the storm, Richardson finally unites with Boutté to form a musician’s aid organization to help Dr. White and others rebuild their lives.