Woody Allen as the Humble Musician

With everything that’s happened to him over the last few years--including nasty splits with longtime lover Mia Farrow and, more recently, his producing partner Jean Doumanian--it’s a good thing Woody Allen has his clarinet playing as a refuge. For decades he has been turning up with persistent regularity to perform New Orleans-style jazz, first at Manhattan’s Michael’s Pub, more recently at Cafe Carlyle in the Algonquin Hotel.

Despite his obviously sincere and continuing dedication to playing, Allen insists on characterizing his clarinet work in deprecating fashion, insisting that what he does should not be confused with what professionals do.

“I’m strictly like a weekend golfer,� he says, “an amateur who’s not particularly good. I don’t have any expectations of myself. I have a lot of enthusiasm, but that’s all. People tolerate me because they’ve seen my movies and they’re perfectly happy to see me playing.�

Happy enough to have set the phones ringing when it was announced that Allen would be performing with the Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Sextet on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City. Only one date was originally scheduled, but the rush for tickets was so intense that the second was added. It too was sold out the day after the announcement.

The performances are related to the Aug. 17 release of Allen’s latest film, “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.� Is Allen nervous about the intense interest in his first U.S. tour as a performing musician? (The sextet was scheduled to perform in Seattle last night and appears in the Bay Area this weekend.)

“No, I’m not good enough to be nervous. I don’t feel qualified enough,� he says, punching out lines but resolute about the accuracy of his self-evaluation. “I think you could safely say that in any given situation, I’m the worst player on the bandstand. That’s why I don’t feel nervous. I’m strictly a hobby player, and I’m happy that nobody ever cringes when I play or anything, that there’s a kind of bemused tolerance of it.�

Anyone who has seen the feature-length documentary “Wild Man Blues� (1998), however, has reason to question Allen’s flagellation of his clarinet playing. Although he cannot be considered a lightning fast virtuoso, his ballad work has the sort of warm intensity that invests his films.

Despite his assertions of amateurism, he has worked hard to raise the level of his playing in the decades since trombonist Turk Murphy urged him to take his music more seriously.

“It was the early ‘60s, when I was appearing at the hungry i in San Francisco as a comic,� Allen recalls, “and I used to go listen to hear Turk at his gigs. When I told him I was an amateur clarinetist, he insisted that I bring it in and play. I resisted it as much as I could, but he just would not take no for an answer.

“As badly as I played, he had me come back and come back. He was encouraging and supportive and would not let me get into my sort of reclusive shell. So he bears a good deal of responsibility for the damage I’m doing now.�

Allen’s attraction to New Orleans music is actually a bit out of sync with his generation. Growing up in the early ‘40s, he heard and enjoyed primarily jazz and big bands, including the work of such clarinetists as Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. His New Orleans epiphany came in the ‘50s, when he first heard Sidney Bechet.

“It made a significant impact on me,� he says. “I went out and bought a soprano saxophone and sort of taught myself the fingering on it. The clarinet came a little later.

“I guess there’s something about New Orleans music that is very simple, very primitive, very rough and direct, very emotional--from the great players--without being in any way complex or cerebral. The emotion is right out there, upfront and open. There’s an enormous warmth to it, as opposed to a much cooler quality that set in with the advent of the bop era.�

But Allen is quick to add that his affection for the New Orleans style as a player has not restricted his interest in other jazz styles.

“I am crazy about bebop musicians,� he adds, “and I’m mad about Bud Powell, in particular. But I’ve enjoyed modern jazz right into John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor as well.

“But New Orleans has stayed with me, for some reason, as particularly meaningful, and it’s hard to explain why. Other than I think it’s just the simplicity--that they take a very simple melody and play it, and all the bang that you get out of the song comes from how beautifully the player plays it. There’s nothing tricky about it, nothing complex or contrived.�

Allen speaks with reverence about New Orleans clarinetists such as Bechet, George Lewis, Johnny Dodds, Albert Burbank and Jimmy Noone. But, asked which has had the greatest influence on his own playing, he laughs.

“These guys are so beyond me that to say that they were influences is funny. There’s a galaxy between me and these players. For me to say I’m influenced by them is sort of like me painting a picture and then saying my chief influence is Rembrandt.�

With or without influences, with or without an affirmation that he does, indeed, possess some skills as a jazz player, Allen doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge what music does for him, the way it taps into his creative imagination in a far different manner from his work as a writer-director.

“It’s a much, much more thrilling thing,� he says. “Writing and directing are highly cerebral endeavors. No matter how much you rely on inspiration and instinct--and of course the best stuff does--you still have to think about structure and writing and craft and ideas and characters and psychological validities.

“But music is different. I’m convinced that, if you asked people, they would say that if they could have one talent, one real tremendous talent in their lives, most people would say, ‘I prefer it to be in music,’ than almost anything else. Everybody in film directing, everybody in writing, if they could really be as good as Jascha Heifetz or Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker, would prefer that gift.�

Allen’s talent will forever be associated, of course, with his writing, his filmmaking and his humor. But there’s little doubt that the nonverbal joys of playing his old-fashioned, Albert system clarinet will continue to contribute to the expression of that talent.

“When I started out, I would have been perfectly happy never to inflict my playing on anyone else,� Allen says. “But I kept being asked to play publicly, so I decided I would make the sacrifice and do the work, try and actually play as a tolerated amateur. The truth is, though, that I’d be just as happy putting on my record player, with just me in my living room, playing along with some of the great old bands. I just like to play.�