COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Geffen
WORKS: Music from the original HBO series
PERFORMER: Rebirth Brass Band, John Boutté, Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty etc
CATALOGUE NO: Geffen 0602527508450
Tremé, one of New Orleans’s oldest neighbourhoods, lends its name to the brilliant TV drama series that has been showing on Sky. Set after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina it focuses on locals, many of them musicians, who are rebuilding their community and the preparations for Mardi Gras. It’s a real treat for jazz fans, as this soundtrack demonstrates. All the action is interspersed with the sights and sounds of the city’s
real-life musicians, and a selection of the finest is captured here.
Whether it’s the jazz funeral marches of the Treme Brass Band, the crowd rousing Trombone Shorty and trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, or the funked up street sounds of the Rebirth Brass Band, this compilation gives an unmissable insight into the Big Easy’s music scene. It’s a city where even airport ‘Arrivals’ are greeted by competing jazz buskers and it’s that same spirit of jostling musical heritage that blasts through here. Neil McKim