Do You Know What It Means?

Season 1, Episode 01


The pilot episode introduces us to the ensemble of characters whose lives the series follows. The musicians in that ensemble include the eternally short of money trombonist Antoine Batiste, played by Wendell Pierce; deejay, gadfly and occasional musician Davis McAlary, played by Steve Zahn; deadly serious 'Big Chief' Albert Lambreaux, a Mardi Gras Indian, played by Clarke Peters; the chief's expatriate son, trumpeter Delmond Lambreaux, played by Rob Brown; cynical street musician Sonny, played by Michiel Huisman; and his considerably more talented girlfriend, the classically trained violinist Annie, played by real-life violinist Lucia Micarelli. These characters mix it up with real New Orleans musicians playing themselves, who in this episode include the Treme Brass Band, the Rebirth Brass Band, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins and his band, and rock musician and Brit Elvis Costello, whose album The River In Reverse is about the hurricane and the levee break and was recorded in New Orleans (the album was co-written and produced by another famous denizen, Allen Toussaint, who appears in later episodes).

The episode's title is taken from that oft-recorded tune, Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? – a sentimental favorite that now has an urgent poignancy since Katrina and the levee failure wiped out so much of New Orleans. It is an unconscious, wistful refrain in the hearts and souls of so many present and former New Orleansians and, as such, is a perfect musical motif for an episode about the return to a lost home and a very nearly lost city and culture. A version of the song by Fats Domino, a favorite son of New Orleans, is heard about halfway through the pilot episode. An influential figure in the history of rock 'n' roll, Domino (sometimes known as simply the Fat Man, after his first hit single) sold more records than any other black rock 'n' roll star of the 1950s. As of this writing, Fats is still around; his house got washed out during Katrina and the flood, but he's back in New Orleans now, to the relief and joy of many.

What we hear first in the episode, though, is New Orleans Hip-Hop/rap, which probably surprised viewers who expected an all-jazz playlist. The rap, Nolia Clap, shouts at us from a passing car. In fact, this episode features two rap artists: Juvenile and Mystikal.

But place of pride, however, goes to the second line, that ubiquitous street dance that is a New Orleans trademark. There are not one but two second lines in the premiere episode, and the story shows us both aspects, but in reverse – first the cheerful one, the part that pulls people out of their houses and shops into the street and makes them join in, then at the close of the pilot, the sober aspect, with musicians leading a funeral parade to the cemetery. Folklorist Nick Spitzer, an anthropology professor at Tulane University (formerly at the University of New Orleans) and host of PRI's weekly radio show American Roots, discusses the meaning and importance of the second line here in part 7 of his interview series Rebuilding the "Land of Dreams": Expressive Culture and New Orleans' Authentic Future.

John Boutte's "Treme Song," used as the series' theme song, is every bit as bouncy and infectious as a proper second line. But the best track by a hair, if you ask me, was left for the closing credits: Li'l Queenie's "My Dawlin' New Orleans." Frankly, I don't know which tune I listened to more after I watched this episode; all I know is that I played both of them to death and couldn't get enough of them for several weeks. (Be forewarned: the original version begins with a very lengthy rap section, until finally it bursts into the song proper; an edited version minus the rap was played over the closing credits of the episode. That's the one I keep on my laptop.)

Better known today by her given name, Leigh Harris no longer lives in New Orleans; as one of the many chased out by the hurricane, the flooding and the aftermath, she now resides in North Carolina. However, for a few years, she and her raw, edgy voice led the group Li'l Queenie and The Percolators, a group that definitely left its stamp on the local music scene. Two of the Percolators later went on to help form another local group, The Subdudes (we hear from them in a later episode). These days, Harris concedes that she doesn't miss the crime, the corruption, and the humidity of her former home, but she desperately misses the people and the culture. She's not alone in that.

Here's the episode's playlist, with the tracks in their order of appearance:

• An until-very-recently-unavailable version of Nolia Clap by Juvenile from the album The Beginning Of The End
  
  
• Feel Like Funkin’ It Up – Rebirth Brass Band from the album Feel Like Funkin’ It Up
  
  
• Tremé Song – John Boutté from the album Jambalaya
  
  
• It's All Over Now – Rebirth Brass Band from the album The Main Event: Live at the Maple Leaf
  
  
• Mama Roux – Dr. John from the album Voodoo Hex; also on three other albums: Next Hex – The Nashville Sessions, Gris Gris, and The Anthology
  
  
• Unrecorded version of I’ll Fly Away played by the Rebirth Brass Band
  [suggestion: version by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band on the album Funeral For A Friend]
  
  
• Hook And Sling – Eddie Bo and The Soul Finders from the album The Hook And Sling
  
  
• Unrecorded version of Big Chief played by Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn)
  [suggestion: version by Dr. John on the album Martin Scorsese Presents Piano Blues]
  
  
• Bouncin’ Back – Mystikal from the album Tarantula
  
  
• Shake Ya Ass – Mystikal from the album Prince Of The South ... The Hits
  
  
• Solace – as practiced by Sofia Bernette during the episode
  [suggestion: version by Scott Joplin via his piano rolls on the album The Entertainer]
  
  
• For Brenda – Tom McDermott from the reissued album All The Keys And Then Some
  
  
• Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans – Fats Domino from the CD boxed set They Call Me the Fat Man: The Legendary Imperial Recordings (disc 4), or the 8-CD boxed set Out Of New Orleans
  
  
• Christopher Jr. – Donald Harrison from the album Nouveau Swing
  
  
• Gatur Bait – The Gaturs from the album Wasted
  
  
• Buona Sera – Louis Prima (2002 remaster) from the album The Wildest!; also on Jump, Jive an' Wail: The Essential Louis Prima

• Somewhere Listening For My Name – Zion Harmonizers from the album Best of New Orleans Gospel
  
  
• Gardez Donc – Beau Jocque and the Zydeco Hi-Rollers from the album Pick Up On This!
  
  
• West End Blues – Louis Armstrong, from the album The Best of The Hot 5 & Hot 7 Recordings or the album Ambassador Satch (with the All Stars); also on The Complete Hot Five And Hot Seven Recordings, Volume 3
  
  
• Whirlaway – Allen Toussaint from the album Alligator Alley
  
  
• Skokiaan – Kermit Ruffins from the album Live At Vaughan's
  
  
• Swing This – Kermit Ruffins from the album Swing This
  
  
• Tetherball – Henry Butler from the album Blues After Sunset
  
  
• Flame On – The Iguanas from the album Plastic Silver 9-Volt Heart
  
  
• Just A Closer Walk With Thee – Treme Brass Band from the album Gimme My Money Back
  
  
• My Dawlin’ New Orleans – Leigh ‘Li’l Queenie’ Harris from the EP single My Dawlin’ New Orleans

As always, your comments on any of these are most welcome.


Next: Meet De Boys On The Battlefront, Season 1 - Episode 2

Another Tremé blog is not too much

Sometimes, too much is just enough. That might be a Mardi Gras motto, but it applies to so many things New Orleans.

It’s been said that Tremé the TV series is a love letter to New Orleans, and to Tremé the neighborhood in particular. True, dat (as they say in the local vernacular). I've been a fan of New Orleans music for most of my adult life, and in love with New Orleans cuisine since I first began to cook. Even though I became a jazz fan at a tender age, it wasn't until I really got into the food that I began to piece together the bits I already knew about New Orleans music and connect it all. You might say the food led me to the music – and I was smitten by both.

As it happens, the culture, the food, and the music are all of a piece in New Orleans. Each aspect of the culture fertilizes the others in a kind of big feedback loop. Once you get hooked on this, it's a lifetime addiction, like beignets or po' boys. The new HBO series Tremé, which debuted this spring, reminded me pointedly of everything that I love about New Orleans. Watching each episode made me alternately hungry, thirsty, eager to listen, concerned (again) about all that has beleaguered that town, and desperate to get a taste of it all again. Fortunately, that is most easily remedied for the musical part: the music travels well even when I can't.

Tremé the series, which is set in and is about post-Katrina New Orleans, focuses on but is not limited to the New Orleans neighborhood known as Faubourg Tremé (FAW-boorg truh-MAY) or just Tremé for short. Tremé is where many of the earliest pioneers of jazz and blues, such as Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, and Kid Ory, lived and worked. In fact, Tremé has produced the greatest number of New Orleans jazz and blues musicians as well as a rich musical legacy in several genres: jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, and rock ‘n’ roll. Which will probably be news to those HBO viewers outside Louisiana, but that's good: I'm all for more people learning more about jazz, which is still America's first and greatest art form. Good thing New Orleans's eclectic mix of music, which frequently crosses genres, is so infectious.

Seriously. Who doesn't love a second line? Especially when it's right there, live, in your face. Gotta be dead or a zombie. Musically, there's probably nothing more emblematic of New Orleans than a second line, which is probably why producers David Simon and Eric Overmyer began and ended the first season with second lines.



Simon and Overmyer get all the fame and the blame for this, tho I can't think of anything worth blaming them for whereas there's much to credit here. You may know them from their previous efforts, The Wire and Homicide: Life On The Street (which is still one of my all-time favorite TV shows). Their work here shines.

Tremé is filmed in New Orleans and uses both fictional characters and characters based on real people to tell the story of a neighborhood and a city trying to recover from the natural and man-made disasters that ensued following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the subsequent failure of the levees. The cast includes many local actors as well as many local musicians playing themselves. You'll get a kick out of seeing Kermit Ruffins, Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews, Dr. John, and Allen Toussaint pop up here and there, playing, drinking, barbecuing, and interacting with the fictional characters, which include a few musicians. I, for one, loved all the trademark Susan Spicer dishes that crept into the kitchen at Desautel's restaurant (Kim Dickens's character Janette Desautel is based on real-life chef Spicer, the owner of and head chef at Bayona). Another local, chef John Besh, makes a few appearances, too, as does a contingent of pros from Top Chef (too cool!). But I digress.

The series and its production have been a source of intense discussion, particularly in greater New Orleans itself, as has the playlist for each episode (see links to the left). And the consensus is: David Simon and crew got it right. Phew! Glad we're past that. Now we can mind the music and the storylines. But as Tremé won't be returning to HBO with new episodes until maybe next spring, that leaves us with just the music. And that's a-plenty.

The influence of New Orleans’s music pervades nearly every scene. Each episode title is taken from a famous song associated with the city or with New Orleans jazz and blues, and every episode features a wide range of musical styles and groups that represent the city. Thus, it’s no surprise that the HBO episode guide for each show includes a listing of all the music used for that episode, noting in which scene that track was used. Tremé’s musical director is the very capable sound designer and sound director Blake Leyh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Frida, Across The Universe, Rachel Getting Married), who is another veteran of The Wire and who freely confesses to loving this music.

The HBO music pages for Tremé provide song titles and performers for the tracks used on each episode plus a link to the ones that download on iTunes – but nothing else. The HBO lists don’t tell you which albums those tracks came from, which is inconvenient if you want to find the tracks elsewhere ... say, at your public library. So: I’ve provided album citations wherever possible.

Unless otherwise indicated, the tracks are available for purchase at both Amazon.com MP3 downloads and iTunes. Although I favor Amazon because the prices are generally either the same or lower than iTunes and there can be some real deals on compilation albums at Amazon, every so often iTunes will have a special that proves me wrong, so it’s worth checking both sources before you download. Then again, if you prefer to own the CD or vinyl, ans I often do, that's Amazon, too. But really, try the library first: many libraries have fine collections of CDs and vinyl LPs that you can check out. Also, some recordings are only available through local sources (like Louisiana Music Factory, for example), so you'll have to do some digging, but I'll point you in the right direction whenever I can. A few tracks are simply out of print; but when/if the licensees of that music catch on that more people are interested due to the success of the series, we may yet see those tracks made available again.

Some music used in the episodes duplicates real performances or recording sessions of that time period. For example, there are scenes of Elvis Costello and Dr. John recording their respective post-Katrina albums. Other performances were created specifically for certain scenes and no recordings of them (other than the episodes themselves) exist to date. For the latter, I have indicated suggested alternative tracks by the same artists (or, if necessary, other similar artists) for listeners interested in those particular songs. Such a wealth of music is being used for this series – not just traditional jazz but also ‘modern’ jazz, big band, swing, blues, funk, hip-hop, rap, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, and R&B – that there is something in this marvelous cornucopia for nearly everyone to love.

BTW, one note: it's traditional jazz, silly, not Dixieland. Dixieland is a label that record companies slapped on to market the genre, and the term refers to highly commercialized (read: inauthentic in style and performance) versions of traditional jazz. What Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong played back in the 1930s and Pete Fountain still plays is traditional jazz, although Louis went on to play far more than just that. Honor the music by using the correct term.

If you want to get more into the background and references for each episode, including more info on the music, Dave Walker's Tremé blog on Nola.com is probably the best source for that. Dave is the TV reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. His episode posts, Treme Explained, are most helpful. I found myself getting hooked on his blog and checking it daily while the series was on, and I still read it once a week to check for new developments, like when the Tremé soundtrack CD is due to be released (no word yet, at this writing). Other jazz blogs, such as NPR's A Blog Supreme, have also been following the episode playlists, whereas Alan Sepinwall's column "What's Alan Watching" on HitFix.com is second only to Walker's for episode reviews. You'll find the links for all of the above plus more Tremé-oriented music blogs in the Blogroll sidebar at the left.

A word of warning: once you start listening to this stuff, you may find yourself getting so involved as to be distracted. For days. And you might get hungry. Why, I myself had to interrupt writing this post to make myself a breakfast of two eggs sunny-side up over reheated jambalaya with sliced andouille sausage, and a cup of steaming café au lait (and a better breakfast you will rarely have, my friend). I felt the same way about seeing the show. Which meant I had to do my Creole cooking late Sunday afternoons so as not to interrupt the Sunday night broadcast, or else drool and starve while watching it. It's gotten to the point where every time I hear the first few notes of John Boutté's theme song, my mouth waters (it's from the album titled Jambalaya, no less; see what I mean?).

There's just no avoiding it. Once you become acquainted with Tremé and its music, you run the serious risk of becoming addicted to other things New Orleans. Well, if you do, consider this blog your bit of lagniappe (that's N'Awlins Creole for something extra, like a 13th praline or beignet when you buy a dozen). Hope you enjoy it – and if you do, please become a fan on my Facebook page. Encouragement is sure to bring on more goodies.

As always, your comments are most welcome.


Next: Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, Season 1 - Episode 1