Timing adds a poignant note to ‘Funky!’

Hurricane Katrina has put a broader perspective on Michael Murphy’s infectious “Make It Funky!,” which salutes New Orleans as the cradle of popular music the world over. It’s anchored to an April 2004 concert in Canal Street’s landmark Saenger Theater that features such legends as Allen Toussaint, the Neville Brothers, Lloyd Price and on and on, plus guest artists Bonnie Raitt and Keith Richards, who, in performing “I’m Ready” in tribute to Fats Domino, says of New Orleans musicians: “These guys made it possible for me to be talking to you.”

The Richards interview is one of many interspersed between performances that call attention to the rich sources of the Crescent City sounds -- Africa, the Caribbean, Louisiana’s Spanish and French colonial eras, Native Americans -- that yielded jazz, the blues, rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll. Indeed, Richards says he believes it was New Orleans that put “the roll in rock.”

Art Neville, the film’s narrator and musical consultant, observes that for African Americans the history of music and the history of survival are really one, and Murphy, a New Orleans native, documents the city itself as he moves from Congo Square, the one place where slaves could keep their music and dances alive, to the neighborhood where Louis Armstrong was born and into the streets, witnessing a traditional New Orleans parade.

He visits two major movers, Cosimo Matassa, co-founder in 1945 of J&M; Studios, where Domino and Dave Bartholomew would change popular music forever, and Jim Russell, a radio promoter crucial in breaking down racial barriers and the proprietor of a store with the city’s largest selection of original 45s and LPs of every New Orleans R&B; artist -- one can only wonder at the fate of such treasures.

There’s not a second in this film that isn’t a reminder that New Orleans in its architecture, cuisine and multicultural diversity as well as in its music is a unique and major American center of culture. Murphy has made a film more valuable than he surely ever could have imagined.

*

‘Make It Funky!’

MPAA rating: Unrated

A Sony Home Entertainment release. Director-cinematographer Michael Murphy. Producers Cilista Eberle, Michael Murphy. Executive producer Daniel Roth. Editor Christy Suire. Musical consultant-narrator Art Neville. Musical directors Steve Jordan, Allen Toussaint. Gregory Davis. Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.

At the Mann Chinese 6, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., (323) 777-FILM #059.