South Florida Tropical Bohemia in the Makings

ON a balmy November night here, Rachel Goodrich was playing to a rapt moonlit crowd in a courtyard of Churchills Pub. She had her red cowboy hat, her percussionist with a mix of blocks, bells and toys, her band of skilled players who are so tight theyre loose, and her kazoo. The ramshackle space in the Little Haiti neighborhood was full of fans and fellow musicians, who sang along with Ms. Goodrichs gin-clear voice as she led her band through the kind of controlled hootenanny that has made her the queen of the Miami indie rock scene. She is the Feist-like jewel of a town more known for machined bass, booty and beats than for handcrafted songs.

Rachel has everything: the band, the look, the sound, said Nick Scapa, 25, a local musician and one of several young entrepreneurs trying to put Miami on the musical map. Ms. Goodrich, 24, was the most buzzed-about act at a benefit for Hear Miami, an organization dedicated to spreading the word about the regions burgeoning music. For a city without much of an indie scene, there was an excitement level at Churchills that felt like Toronto or San Francisco or Boston. Except with that brilliant Miami moon.

Thanks to talents like Ms. Goodrich, Miamis reputation as a dead zone for live music may be changing. A spate of CDs by Miami artists, propelled by local promoters and backed with national tours, are poised to raise the citys profile. Ms. Goodrich released Tinker Toys, her charming debut album, on her own Yellow Bear label in October. Rough Guide has compiled the independent CDs by the Spam Allstars, the Latin-funk band that is a veteran of the international festival circuit. Jacob Jeffries, a 20-year-old pianist, bandleader and singer-songwriter, is recording the final disc of a trilogy. And record labels and music publishers are starting to pay attention.

Miami is striving to find an independent music scene, said Barbara Cane, vice president and general manager for writer and publisher relations at BMI, who is working with Mr. Jeffries. Its going to take one little person like Jacob to open doors to all those other Jacobs down there.

The indie music scene is also getting a lift from the increasing international visibility of Miamis creative class. This week tens of thousands of art makers and appreciators will descend on the city for the annual Art Basel Miami Beach, the fair that vaulted the regions fertile visual arts to world-renowned status. At some of those parties the jet set will be serenaded by the newest exponents of this growing tropical bohemia, bands with jazz-school pedigrees and hybrid sounds: the punk-soul of Awesome New Republic (better known as ANR), the electro bliss of Airship Rocketship and the progressive pop of the JeanMarie.

I have faith that eventually the international respect being paid to the art scene will carry over to the music scene, said Michael-John Hancock, the singer of ANR. He and his band mate, Brian Robertson, were among the first in a small wave of graduates of the University of Miamis Frost School of Music to stay and make a stand as a band.

It may not seem surprising for a metropolitan area the size of South Florida to have a thriving rock scene. But Miami has never been a typical American city; as the joke goes, Its lovely, and so close to the U.S. While Miami has countless dance clubs, there are very few establishments that support live local music. The city has long been a center of the Latin music industry, but Latin artists have trouble finding places to play too. Miami rappers like Rick Ross, Trina, DJ Khaled and Flo Rida have made da Bottom, as they call it, a major player in the world of hip-hop, but theyve built their reps through strip clubs, mixtapes and cameos on other artists recordings.

For bands the citys physical isolation presents obstacles. Whereas musicians in the Northeast can tour from one major city to another to build a regional fan base, for Miamians its about an 11-hour drive to Atlanta, the next musical mecca. Geographically its a struggle to get out of South Florida, Mr. Jeffries said.

And the transient nature of a city full of tourists and immigrants fosters a nightlife thats built around partying. The music that D.J.s spin in local clubs is heavily beat driven: hip-hop, techno, trance. Until recently, the primary outlet for the alternative crowd was the experimental electronic genre called intelligent dance music.