[2][3] White is a classically trained musician who began his jazz musical career as a teenager playing for Doc Paulin's Brass Band in New Orleans.

He was a member of an incarnation of the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, established by banjoist Danny Barker.

On May 25, 2004, a selection from White's album Dancing in the Sky ("Algiers Hoodoo Woman") was broadcast on NPR's All Songs Considered.

[10] White was living in a one-story home in the Gentilly district of New Orleans, near the London Avenue Canal during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

He owned the original sheet music of "Dead Man Blues" by Jelly Roll Morton, a clarinet mouthpiece by Sidney Bechet, and an estimated 5,000 records and LPs which were lost during the flooding.