In aftermath of Katrina, he's set to toast new year
When Henry Butler welcomes the new year tomorrow night at Berklee's David Friend Recital Hall, as Boston's contribution to National Public Radio's annual ''Toast of the Nation," it's a safe bet he'll be glad to have 2005 behind him.
The versatile pianist and singer was left homeless by Hurricane Katrina this summer, reluctantly fleeing his house in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans a day ahead of the storm.
''I intended to ride it out," says Butler, 56, by phone from Boulder, Colo., where he's been housed temporarily since Katrina, ''but some people showed up at my doorstep saying they weren't leaving New Orleans without me. And frankly, I'm glad they did, because there's no way I could've survived that one."
Butler and his friends waited out the hurricane in the tiny northern Louisiana town of Farmerville, but his New Orleans home was destroyed by seven feet of floodwater. Everything in it, too. His 1925 Mason & Hamlin piano. His recording equipment, stereo, and CD collection. His computer. All the clothes that he hadn't carried with him.
He's making do without a piano in his FEMA-arranged housing in Boulder while awaiting an insurance settlement and deciding whether it makes sense to rebuild in New Orleans. Friends have donated a replacement computer and loaned him an electronic keyboard. And Berklee brought Butler to campus for a short residency this fall as part of its New Orleans Visiting Artist program, set up to help displaced New Orleans musicians get through the storm's aftermath.
Coincidentally, the first such visiting artist, saxophonist Donald Harrison, headlined last year's Boston segment of ''Toast of the Nation." Butler is a similarly shrewd choice for the gig. Like Harrison, Butler has highly impressive jazz credentials yet doesn't hesitate to spice up a show with crowd-pleasing ingredients from their hometown's musical gumbo. In Butler's case, that can mean singing a raw-edge blues, soulful R&B, or dazzling an audience instrumentally a la New Orleans piano greats James Booker and Professor Longhair.
All that and more turns up on Butler's most recent CD, 2004's ''Homeland," and he could draw from any of it tomorrow night, depending on his mood. Joining him will be bassist Mark Diamond of Boulder and drummer Herman Jackson of New Orleans. ''We're going to do some straight-ahead," promises Butler, ''and we're going to do probably some New Orleans stuff. We're going to do whatever we feel like doing. And that's kind of the way I approach most performances."
Butler has always done so, though his first two albums were straight-ahead jazz discs with sidemen, including Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, and Jack DeJohnette. Butler grew up in New Orleans seeing musicians play a wide array of styles, then went on to study with teachers across the musical spectrum: Alvin Batiste, George Duke, Harold Mabern, Sir Roland Hanna, and Professor Longhair. Hanna, Butler says, had the narrowest focus of all of them. He didn't just zero in on jazz; he turned up his nose at one of Butler's jazz heroes.
''When I told him that I liked McCoy Tyner, he says, 'I have no use for a guy who beats on the piano like he does,' " Butler recalls. ''That's what he said. 'I have no use for that.' He said to me, 'I believe that you should treat the piano like a beautiful woman -- caress her and make beautiful music, make beautiful love to the piano.' My lessons with Sir Roland were spent trying to restrain myself."
Professor Longhair, the furthest removed from straight-ahead jazz among Butler's famous teachers, also advocated a light touch. ''He said, 'If you play a little softer, you could move a lot faster," Butler says, laughing. ''And I'm still working on that."
Work is something Butler has never shied from. Neither is adversity. One bright spot in 2005 for Butler was a spring exhibit of his photographs, titled ''How EYE See It," at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans. Childhood glaucoma left Butler completely blind by age 3, but he took up photography in the mid-1980s, more or less on a dare.
Now Butler's largest hurdle is getting his life back together post-Katrina. He says he'd like to record another CD in 2006, but remains distracted by more pressing matters.
''I have some ideas," Butler says. ''Certainly, I want to try to do something next year, but right now, man, I'm sort of in survival mode. I'm trying to get settled here in Boulder. I don't know what's going to happen to my house in New Orleans. It's just not right for me mentally or emotionally. And I don't have a musical instrument."
The lineup for ''Toast of the Nation": After Butler and Boston kick off NPR's toast, the live broadcast will move to Sanibel Island, Fla., for a 9 p.m. performance by the Brubeck Brothers Quartet. Then it's on to the New Orleans club Tipitina's for the Hot 8 Brass Band at 10 p.m. The Chico O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, directed by Arturo O'Farrill, goes on from New York's Birdland at 11 p.m., and will actually ring in the New Year for the East Coast. At 12:10 a.m., jazz vocalist Rene Marie takes over from Columbia, Mo. It's back to Tipitina's at about 1 a.m. for the funk band Galactic. At 2 a.m., guests Jimmy Scott and the Jazz Expressions will join Pink Martini in Portland, Ore. Finally, from 3:30 to 6 a.m., highlights from the whole shebang will be rebroadcast.
