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Footballguy
Can't wait for this.
Now New Orleans Is His Focus
By LARRY BLUMENFELD
New Orleans and New York
On a late-November Tuesday night in New Orleans, bodies rubbed up against one another at Bullet's Sports Bar as Kermit Ruffins coaxed high notes from his trumpet. The music was infectious, the regulars who packed the neighborhood joint for this weekly gig deeply committed to it. The next night, Mr. Ruffins was back. This time, more than a dozen thick cables snaked their way out onto A.P. Tureaud Avenue and into a sound-company trailer. It was no regular gig: "Treme," producer David Simon's latest series for HBO, was taping inside.
After an enthusiastic response to a pilot episode from HBO executives and the end of the hurricane season, Mr. Simon is back in New Orleans to complete the 10-episode premiere season, scheduled to begin its run in April.
Mr. Simon is best known for "The Wire," his previous HBO series, which earned a faithful following for its detailed, critical evocation of his hometown, Baltimore, as told through the intersecting lives of cops, dope dealers, politicians, teachers, and the journalists who reported on (or failed to cover) it all. That show's title, a reference to a police wiretap on a drug ring, also suggested unseen links between street action and the corridors of power in a city marked by postindustrial decline. "Treme" will tap directly into an indigenous culture that threads through much of daily activity in New Orleans and has served as a lifeline for many returning residents in a city still inching toward postflood recovery.
"The Wire" and much of Mr. Simon's previous television work ("Homicide," "The Corner") were natural outgrowths of his 12-year tenure as a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun and his subsequent books. The new project owes to a more personal investigation.
"I remember stumbling into my first second-line parade maybe 20 years ago," said Mr. Simon, now 49, as he leaned back in his chair at a production office in Manhattan's West Village. "The Treme brass band went up Orleans Avenue to Claiborne Avenue, then stopped under the I-10 bridge. The echo was fantastic. They went past the Lafitte projects and people came out of their homes to join in. I was all the way up in Mid-City before I realized I'd walked 30 blocks and would have to walk all the way back. I didn't know exactly what was going on, but I was hooked."
The new series draws its name from Tremé, which some consider the oldest black neighborhood in America, and which has long been a hothouse for New Orleans jazz. It will focus largely on those who shape the city's cultural identity: traditional jazz and brass-band musicians; Social Aid & Pleasure Club members who mount Sunday second-line parades; and perhaps the most mysterious and essential group of all—Mardi Gras Indians, who, dressed in elaborate feathered and beaded suits, pay homage to both the Indians who once sheltered runaway slaves and to the spirit of African-American resistance.
Mr. Simon recalls his astonishment at happening upon two Mardi Gras Indian chiefs confronting each other through a ritual of chants, dances and postures, and the delight in his son Ethan's eyes the first time he heard a brass band play. When he took Ethan to New Orleans once for Mardi Gras, he told teachers they were attending a religious ceremony (a not entirely fraudulent excuse).
"I'd thought for quite some time about a series about New Orleans, a drama based in American roots music," said Mr. Simon. "But obviously it gave it a political relevance when Katrina happened. And it gave us the opportunity to get in a room and talk about doing this kind of a show with executives in L.A."
It also lent the idea new meaning. "We want to consider," he said, "whether or not what is essential and rare and unique about New Orleans, and what it provides the American character, is going to survive in a form that is self-sustaining and organic, not just a museum piece."
Mr. Simon takes on a daunting task in capturing the not well understood and somewhat insular subcultures he's chosen as his focus. With any success, he can achieve something mightier too—an understanding of the essential role musicians play in New Orleans's social order and recovery, as well as the embattled position they often find themselves in. Mr. Simon, a master at portraying systematic dysfunction, will no doubt turn a lens on the curious and combative relationship between the city's culture bearers and its power brokers. (In 2007, Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs took the city to federal court over raised permit fees, for instance; Mardi Gras Indian assemblies have suffered police intimidation.)
"Will David Simon's New Orleans-set series be too weird for the world?" asked the headline to an April column by New Orleans Times-Picayune television reporter Dave Walker. New Orleans is famously idiosyncratic, right down to how locals refer to the most mundane elements of life (paved street medians, for instance, are "neutral grounds"). "It's easy to get it terribly wrong," said Mr. Simon, "and terribly hard to get it right." It helps that Mr. Simon's frequent collaborator, and a co-creator of "Treme," Eric Overmyer, has owned a home in New Orleans for 20 years. Mr. Simon also hired Times-Picayune reporter Lolis Eric Elie, who co-produced the 2008 documentary "Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans," and local author Tom Piazza for the writing staff.
Actor Wendell Pierce, who portrayed Bunk Moreland on "The Wire," was born and raised in the city's Pontchartrain Park neighborhood; he will portray trombonist Antoine Batiste, whose last name evokes one of the city's storied musical lineages. Clarke Peters (detective Lester Freamon on "The Wire") plays a Mardi Gras Indian Chief who is also a jazz musician: His scenes were vetted by Donald Harrison, a New Orleans native who straddles both worlds in real life. Davis Rogan, a pianist who once gave informal lessons to Mr. Simon's son, will share knowledge of local music history with actor Steve Zahn, who plays a local DJ and music enthusiast. And Mr. Ruffins, fedora askew, bandana peeking out beneath it, will get significant screen time. ("There wasn't any use in casting someone else," Mr. Simon said with a laugh. "Only Kermit can play Kermit.")
'This won't be 'The Wire' with a better soundtrack," Mr. Simon said. "It's a completely different animal." Yet in one significant way he seems to be extending his previous theme. "We just want to create a drama about why the American city matters," he said. This time around, the answer centers on culture, which represents an entirely new, perhaps transformative, storyline. And about that soundtrack: It's guaranteed to swing like nothing ever has on TV.
Now New Orleans Is His Focus
By LARRY BLUMENFELD
New Orleans and New York
On a late-November Tuesday night in New Orleans, bodies rubbed up against one another at Bullet's Sports Bar as Kermit Ruffins coaxed high notes from his trumpet. The music was infectious, the regulars who packed the neighborhood joint for this weekly gig deeply committed to it. The next night, Mr. Ruffins was back. This time, more than a dozen thick cables snaked their way out onto A.P. Tureaud Avenue and into a sound-company trailer. It was no regular gig: "Treme," producer David Simon's latest series for HBO, was taping inside.
After an enthusiastic response to a pilot episode from HBO executives and the end of the hurricane season, Mr. Simon is back in New Orleans to complete the 10-episode premiere season, scheduled to begin its run in April.
Mr. Simon is best known for "The Wire," his previous HBO series, which earned a faithful following for its detailed, critical evocation of his hometown, Baltimore, as told through the intersecting lives of cops, dope dealers, politicians, teachers, and the journalists who reported on (or failed to cover) it all. That show's title, a reference to a police wiretap on a drug ring, also suggested unseen links between street action and the corridors of power in a city marked by postindustrial decline. "Treme" will tap directly into an indigenous culture that threads through much of daily activity in New Orleans and has served as a lifeline for many returning residents in a city still inching toward postflood recovery.
"The Wire" and much of Mr. Simon's previous television work ("Homicide," "The Corner") were natural outgrowths of his 12-year tenure as a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun and his subsequent books. The new project owes to a more personal investigation.
"I remember stumbling into my first second-line parade maybe 20 years ago," said Mr. Simon, now 49, as he leaned back in his chair at a production office in Manhattan's West Village. "The Treme brass band went up Orleans Avenue to Claiborne Avenue, then stopped under the I-10 bridge. The echo was fantastic. They went past the Lafitte projects and people came out of their homes to join in. I was all the way up in Mid-City before I realized I'd walked 30 blocks and would have to walk all the way back. I didn't know exactly what was going on, but I was hooked."
The new series draws its name from Tremé, which some consider the oldest black neighborhood in America, and which has long been a hothouse for New Orleans jazz. It will focus largely on those who shape the city's cultural identity: traditional jazz and brass-band musicians; Social Aid & Pleasure Club members who mount Sunday second-line parades; and perhaps the most mysterious and essential group of all—Mardi Gras Indians, who, dressed in elaborate feathered and beaded suits, pay homage to both the Indians who once sheltered runaway slaves and to the spirit of African-American resistance.
Mr. Simon recalls his astonishment at happening upon two Mardi Gras Indian chiefs confronting each other through a ritual of chants, dances and postures, and the delight in his son Ethan's eyes the first time he heard a brass band play. When he took Ethan to New Orleans once for Mardi Gras, he told teachers they were attending a religious ceremony (a not entirely fraudulent excuse).
"I'd thought for quite some time about a series about New Orleans, a drama based in American roots music," said Mr. Simon. "But obviously it gave it a political relevance when Katrina happened. And it gave us the opportunity to get in a room and talk about doing this kind of a show with executives in L.A."
It also lent the idea new meaning. "We want to consider," he said, "whether or not what is essential and rare and unique about New Orleans, and what it provides the American character, is going to survive in a form that is self-sustaining and organic, not just a museum piece."
Mr. Simon takes on a daunting task in capturing the not well understood and somewhat insular subcultures he's chosen as his focus. With any success, he can achieve something mightier too—an understanding of the essential role musicians play in New Orleans's social order and recovery, as well as the embattled position they often find themselves in. Mr. Simon, a master at portraying systematic dysfunction, will no doubt turn a lens on the curious and combative relationship between the city's culture bearers and its power brokers. (In 2007, Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs took the city to federal court over raised permit fees, for instance; Mardi Gras Indian assemblies have suffered police intimidation.)
"Will David Simon's New Orleans-set series be too weird for the world?" asked the headline to an April column by New Orleans Times-Picayune television reporter Dave Walker. New Orleans is famously idiosyncratic, right down to how locals refer to the most mundane elements of life (paved street medians, for instance, are "neutral grounds"). "It's easy to get it terribly wrong," said Mr. Simon, "and terribly hard to get it right." It helps that Mr. Simon's frequent collaborator, and a co-creator of "Treme," Eric Overmyer, has owned a home in New Orleans for 20 years. Mr. Simon also hired Times-Picayune reporter Lolis Eric Elie, who co-produced the 2008 documentary "Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans," and local author Tom Piazza for the writing staff.
Actor Wendell Pierce, who portrayed Bunk Moreland on "The Wire," was born and raised in the city's Pontchartrain Park neighborhood; he will portray trombonist Antoine Batiste, whose last name evokes one of the city's storied musical lineages. Clarke Peters (detective Lester Freamon on "The Wire") plays a Mardi Gras Indian Chief who is also a jazz musician: His scenes were vetted by Donald Harrison, a New Orleans native who straddles both worlds in real life. Davis Rogan, a pianist who once gave informal lessons to Mr. Simon's son, will share knowledge of local music history with actor Steve Zahn, who plays a local DJ and music enthusiast. And Mr. Ruffins, fedora askew, bandana peeking out beneath it, will get significant screen time. ("There wasn't any use in casting someone else," Mr. Simon said with a laugh. "Only Kermit can play Kermit.")
'This won't be 'The Wire' with a better soundtrack," Mr. Simon said. "It's a completely different animal." Yet in one significant way he seems to be extending his previous theme. "We just want to create a drama about why the American city matters," he said. This time around, the answer centers on culture, which represents an entirely new, perhaps transformative, storyline. And about that soundtrack: It's guaranteed to swing like nothing ever has on TV.
I knew I recognized that Eddie Bo song when it came on, but I couldn't remember the name for the life of me. Looks like they are using authentic New Orleans music for this show, even down to the rap.
