Woody Allen takes his music seriously

Woody Allen says he plays his clarinet every day.

"I have to practice to play as bad as I do," he jokes.

The self-depreciating line, given in a recent telephone interview, is the same one he has given before when asked about his passion for traditional New Orleans jazz.

But all joking aside, the 76-year-old actor and film director, who often plays the fool onscreen, is serious when it comes to his music.

Allen, who rarely gives interviews, is eager to talk about his role in a jazz band that is on its first American tour.

"I'm not the leader of the band; Eddy Davis, the banjo player, is," Allen says. "But because I am a celebrity, I am the de facto leader. I don't want to be the leader. But they all look to me to pick the songs."

The Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band With Woody Allen has more than 1,500 traditional (some call it Dixieland) jazz songs in its repertoire.

"Every time we play, I have no idea of what we are going to do next, but when we finish one song, I'll start another."

Allen says he has been playing clarinet since he was a teenager growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s. He aspired to be a musician like one of his heroes, Sidney Bechet, the legendary jazz saxophone and clarinet artist.

"It's a good thing I didn't become a musician because I'm not that good at it," Allen says. "I'm like a weekend golfer or weekend tennis player. I play with enthusiasm and I love it, but I don't really have a deep talent for it."

Allen has achieved international fame as a comedy writer who evolved into a stand-up comic and then became an actor, director and filmmaker.

Allen's films range from the slapstick such as "Take the Money and Run," "Bananas," and "Sleeper" (in which he plays a frozen jazz musician who awakes in the future) to the romantic ("Annie Hall") as well as the nostalgic "Manhattan" (lush with the music of George Gershwin). Vintage jazz is on the soundtracks of many Allen films such as "Purple Rose of Cairo," "Bullets Over Broadway," "Radio Days" "Sweet and Lowdown" and the more recent "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

"I put the kind of music that I like in my movies," he says. "I grew up with Gershwin and Cole Porter and Jerome Kern and that kind of music, and I also grew up with the jazz music of people like Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, and a certain amount of New Orleans music. I haven't used a ton of New Orleans music though."

He says many of his films also reflect his nostalgia for New York from the 1920s to '50s.

"New York City in the '20s during Prohibition was so exciting, and then the '30s had the café society and all the nightclubs and a hundred theaters on Broadway. And I remember New York in the 1940s and places like 21 and The Stork Club, and plays by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill."

For nearly 40 years, Allen has continued to play jazz, earning respect from fellow jazz musicians while playing in New York nightclubs.

Since the 1990s, Allen has played in a jazz band that has been a top draw on Monday nights at the Carlyle Hotel in New York. Allen is the draw because of his celebrity as a comedy star, but he downplays his role as a musician.

"The other guys are great because they are real musicians," he says. "I can tell just by playing with them night after night, and I am not. I get a lot of slack because I am a performer known for the movies and people turn out to see me. But if I had to make a living as a musician I would not be able to."

He says the public performances grew out of weekly living-room sessions in which he and fellow musicians would play for fun.

"It was like a weekly poker game, but we played jazz," he says. "Years ago, the guys said they felt we should play for an audience at a local club. I didn't care.

"Now we've been on tours all over the world, appearing in grand opera houses and concert halls in Venice and Rome and Paris and Germany and we sell out because this kind of music is more popular in Europe than the United States," he says. "What started as a little hobby for me has turned out to be a big hobby."

Allen's love for the improvisational style of traditional New Orleans jazz dates back to his teens.

"I was about 14 when I first heard it, and it sounded very emotional, very primitive and crude, and I love it," he says. "It appealed to me on a very basic emotional level and I started buying New Orleans records. Like any 14-year-old who becomes obsessive, I started buying all the Jelly Roll Morton records and Louie Armstrong records and Sidney Bechet and Robert Johnson and others."

It has been suggested that Allen is helping preserve traditional New Orleans music though his performances. But he dismisses that.

"There are a few New Orleans music fans in America, but not a lot," he says. "I think people show up to see us because they have seen me in the movies. They come and they listen and most of them enjoy themselves because the music is lively and melodic, but I don't think they give a moment's thought to become fans of the music."