Play It Again, Woody

The lens is about to zoom in on Woody Allen’s life. But this documentary undoubtedly will have nothing to do with angst or his sordid love life and everything to do with one of his greatest loves: music.

Directed by documentary filmmaker Terry Zwigoff--whose last effort was the critically acclaimed biography of cartoonist Robert Crumb--the movie will follow Woody, his clarinet and his six-member New Orleans Funeral and Ragtime Orchestra as they “do Europe” at the end of February.

Allen and his band’s brand of Dixieland jazz have been Monday night regulars at Michael’s Pub on East 55th Street in New York for nearly two decades. And apparently they’ve been the rave of visiting European club guests for years as well.

“A lot of people from Europe who visit New York and have stopped in the club to see Woody play over the years love his music and have told him he should play over there,” says Jean Doumanian, who served as executive producer of Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite” and “Bullets Over Broadway.”

It was Doumanian, a veteran producer of both TV and film, who had been itching to do a documentary on the man and his music for quite some time. And when she saw “Crumb,” she says she was blown away by Zwigoff’s directorial talent.

“It was an incredible piece of work and I knew he would be right for this. I had never met him before. And then I learned about ‘Louie Bluie’ and what an aficionado Terry was of old records”--a perfect match for Allen, who once told The Times that he hasn’t listened to any American popular music recorded after 1956.

“Louie Bluie,” about an obscure blues musician named Howard Armstrong, is one of the two other documentaries Zwigoff has directed, both predating “Crumb.” The other, “A Family Named Moe,” is about the history of Hawaiian music.

Like Allen’s films at a similar stage, Doumanian says, this documentary is still without a title. And it will truly be a work in progress: There is not yet a firm outline for how the film will play out. “We want to see where it takes us,” she says.

Where the tour will take Allen is the hot spots of Europe. He plans to play in auditoriums in some of the continent’s big cities, probably in four to six countries over a five-week period, Doumanian says.

Stops on the tentative agenda so far are Florence, Milan, Venice, London, Paris, Barcelona and Madrid, and there’s a chance Allen will tour Switzerland and Germany as well.*