The Jazz Museum in Harlem

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Jazz for Curious Listeners
Tuning into Tremé with Larry Blumenfeld, The Wall Street Journal -- Bands on the Run
November 6, 2012

In Sidney Bechet's memoir, "Treat It Gentle," the late, great clarinetist's real grandfather is supplanted by Omar, a fictional figure based on a folk tale, all the better to convey stirring truths about the true origins of New Orleans jazz. Real and imagined intermingle pointedly in New Orleans, in all walks of life. Set in New Orleans, David Simon's fictional HBO series "Treme," now in its third season, picked up three months after the floods that resulted from the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina. Culture, which in New Orleans means a tight braid of music, cuisine, dance, visual art, and street life, is the primary focus of the series, as indeed it was and is the defining element of the city's recovery and renewed identity.

These 90-minute conversations, led by writer Larry Blumenfeld, who has written extensively about New Orleans since the flood, will use the third season of the HBO series to frame a wide-ranging consideration of jazz culture in New Orleans and its role in continued recovery. Excerpts from the show will be screened, and special guests-musicians, participants in the series, and scholars-will join in the discussion.

Bands on the Run: Season 3 opened with a riveting scene of musicians getting arrested at a memorial procession in the street, based on an actual 2007 incident. We'll look at the historic tension between the city and its indigenous culture, how it has recently bubbled up in clubs, on Facebook, and in city council chambers, and how it affects the cultural life of New Orleans residents and the careers of musicians.

Larry Blumenfeld writes about music and culture for The Wall Street Journal, Village Voice and many other publications, is editor-at-large of Jazziz magazine, and blogs at: http://blogs.artinfo.com/blunotes/ He is a former Katrina Media Fellow with the Open Society Institute, researching cultural recovery in New Orleans, and the winner of the 2012 Jazz Journalists Association Helen Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Writing.

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