They're not so much nightclubs, we learned in Ken Burns's JAZZ. Think of them as late-night laboratories where musicians are constantly experimenting with the sounds that are characterized as jazz and blues.

You'll have a front row seat in such a lab this month when APT presents 4th & 23rd, a new music series videotaped at a club on 4th Street and 23rd Avenue in Tuscaloosa - the heart of the city's bustling warehouse club district.

We wanted to showcase the innovative, entertaining, and energetic artists who are playing Alabama's clubs, and we think this series is a great venue for them," says producer Dwight Cammeron.

The five-part series features The Guy Smiley Blues Exchange, guitarist Gary Edmonds, blues harp player Topper Price, and Juice, a New Orleans band that plays a psychedelic gumbo of jazz, rhythm and blues, and funk.

"Some of the bands may not be household names yet," says Cammeron, "but they're on their way.

"We wanted to capture the environment that creates this music," Cammeron says. "The interaction between the artists and the audience is important. So this isn't antiseptic and lifeless music that comes out of a studio. It's a performance that unfolds in front of our cameras."

You hear the expected and unexpected at 4th & 23rd, from jazz standards to original compositions that don't conform to the limits of Top 40, two-and-a-half minute songs. Along with the usual guitars and keyboards you'll see flutists, horn players, and turntable scratchers.

"These bands bring a lot of variety to this series," says Cammeron. "It's kind of like an Austin City Limits for Alabama's jazz and blues scene. Only there aren't any limits here."