On his new CD, Straight Ahead, Tim Laughlin uses a ‘modern’ jazz rhythm section that includes bassist Bill Huntington and pianist Peter Martin.

If you make your living performing traditional jazz in New Orleans, there are several paths to take. Some musicians stick strictly to the top-40 tunes the tourists want ("Muskrat Ramble," "Bourbon Street Parade"), and avoid practicing most of their adult lives. Others probe the more obscure corners of the early jazz repertory, resuscitating long-forgotten ditties whether they merit revival or not while looking down on players unfamiliar with these artifacts.

  But after learning the war horses and a measure of the old obscurities, New Orleans clarinetist Tim Laughlin started taking a third approach, writing new tunes in the old style. Composing "new traditional" music might sound oxymoronic, but it’s been going on in jazz at least since the New Orleans revival of the 1940s, and it’s a process that takes place in every other music idiom as well. Think of Prokofiev’s "Classical" symphony, or the terrific 19th century music Rachmaninoff was writing in the l930s, or the born-again folkies of the l960s.

  The 38-year-old Laughlin has been penning originals for much of his 23 years of playing, and puts at least a couple on each new CD he releases. His latest disc, Straight Ahead, however goes one step further away from trad jazz orthodoxy: He’s backed by a "modern" jazz rhythm section, including the dean of local bassists, Bill Huntington, and the pianist Peter Martin.

  That Laughlin makes a successful transition from traditional to mainstream jazz is not surprising for several reasons. Tim is at heart a "swing" clarinet stylist, at the more contemporary end of what is lumped into the sprawling category of traditional jazz. His idol, Pete Fountain, and Fountain’s idol Irving Fazola, played a Dixieland repertoire but were swing players as well. "I didn’t even really know about the great New Orleans ‘20s players like Johnny Dodds and Jimmy Noone until I started working with Steve Pistorius and Chris Tyle in my 20s," Laughlin admits. Playing with those two stalwart archivalists at the now-defunct Mahogany Hall was an important part of Laughlin’s training, as was his stint with the Dukes of Dixieland, from l990-97.

  Like Fountain, Laughlin’s playing is not pyrotechnical; he shoots for lyricism every time out. He’s on a constant search for the beautiful melody, much like Stephane Grappelli or Erroll Garner, two jazz greats who avoided categorization. And every note he plays is projected with a pearly tone, surely one of the loveliest in New Orleans. After playing a hundreds of gigs with Laughlin, I’ve repeatedly seen how audiences just love his sound, like felines drawn to a bowl of cream. Other players play higher, louder and longer, but Tim realizes it’s tuneful melody projected with a mellifluous tone that people want.

  Laughlin’s Jazz Fest set will sport the same band as his CD: Martin, Huntington, drummer Bunchie Johnson and guitarist John Eubanks, the latter playing some very nice harmony and counterpoint behind Laughlin’s clarinet lead. Johnson is one of those drummers coveted by a certain kind of New Orleans traditionalist, one who knows the old tunes and rhythms but who can also funk it up if necessary. At age 30, Peter Martin is as good as any jazz pianist in New Orleans, with a superb technique and unique phrasing that inform every solo he takes. "He steals the show on this CD," Laughlin confides, "but if it makes the music swing that’s fine with me."

  Reaction to the new rhythm section has been mixed: Some older listeners are perplexed, but Tim has won over other music lovers who might not have been interested in hearing him play King Oliver. It brings up the question again on how to play traditional jazz today. The fact is very little of the trad jazz played in New Orleans today sounds like the music played in the heyday of Jelly Roll Morton or King Oliver. Intentionally or not, most musicians put a more modernist spin on the music of the ’20s. It’s all relative; for some people, the music started declining when Louis Armstrong established the soloist’s primacy over the polyphonic mix of the front-line horns (go figure). What is fascinating about this town is sorting out where its many fine clarinetists get their inspiration – who derives what from Sidney Bechet, Artie Shaw, George Lewis, Pee Wee Russell and so on.

  Laughlin takes any negative reaction to his new project with a grain of salt. "I didn’t change my style of playing at all. I just put myself with my originals and other songs I enjoy playing into a more contemporary context," he observes. "It’s a great job … and I have to do it."