As we mark the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, here are the soulfully defiant sounds of the New Orleans-based Treme Brass Band. This is music that proudly proclaims, “we’re still here!” It’s the same sense of spirit that emerges from the solemn jazz funeral procession that suddenly turns into an uplifting street celebration.
I heard the Treme band when I was in New Orleans, earlier in the summer. Here is Jesus on the Main Line from their 1995 album, Gimme My Money Back!
Jazz music is America’s past and its potential, summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. The music can connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves-to-come. It can remind us of where we fit on the time line of human achievement, an ultimate value of art.
-Wynton Marsalis
- Find the Treme Brass Band on iTunes, Amazon.
- New Orleans: The Birth of Jazz with Wynton Marsalis