{"id":408,"date":"2011-07-05T13:29:15","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T17:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2011\/07\/urban_realism_and_treme\/"},"modified":"2019-09-13T11:47:02","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T15:47:02","slug":"urban_realism_and_treme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/07\/urban_realism_and_treme.html","title":{"rendered":"Urban Realism and Treme"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David Simon – photo \u00c2\u00a9Paul Schiraldi; Clark Peters – Pinterest<\/p><\/div>\n

“Life is glorious and vibrant and joyous at points, but it is essentially tragic. That’s not a unique David Simon perspective.” So sayeth David Simon, (pictured left; right is a Mardi Gras Indian portrayed by Clarke Peters), executive producer with Eric Overmyer of <\/span>Treme<\/em><\/span>, in\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>a long interview on Salon<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0conducted by<\/span><\/span>\u00c2\u00a0Matt Zolar Seitz.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The HBO series about New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,\u00c2\u00a0which ended its second season last Sunday night, is unique as a musical drama for its grounding of psychologically acute and entertaining characterizations in a verifiably real social context — an accomplishment attributable to Simon’s hard-boiled yet compassionate philosophy and journalistically-influenced creative practices. It’s all laid out in the interview, which also makes a strong case for the centrality of cities to the future of America.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Simon, in talking about New Orleans which he clearly admires, says,<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00c2\u00a0[W]hat is wonderful about the city, and what works when nothing else seems to work, is the idea that people are experiencing\u00c2\u00a0urban<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0life, which is the only life that America is going to have going forward. I mean, we’re not going back to small-town values. Sorry! Y’know? Regardless of the rhetoric of any given politician at any moment, it’s big-city values that are going to save us or thwart us. Small town values are irrelevant. Eighty-three percent of us live in metropolitan areas now, or areas that are at least oriented toward cities, and the health of those cities determine the health of metro areas. Get it straight. Jefferson lost that argument, Hamilton won.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Until we find some affection for who we are and who we’re going to be, and until we become inclusive about it — “inclusive” being the important word here — the future is either gonna be gated communities and a\u00c2\u00a0lot of poor people, or we’re gonna figure out how the\u00c2\u00a0city<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0works. And that’s going to be the new America.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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I wrote yesterday of my admiration for Treme, <\/em>which extends beyond Simon and Overmyer to novelist George Pelicanos, music critic Tom Piazza<\/a>, restauranteur-writer Anthony Bourdain, the late David Mills, music consultant Davis Rogan, and former Times-Picayune columnist Lolis Eric Elie.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>They deserve kudos as does the terrific cast and superb sounds interwoven through everything, for which credit must go to music supervisor\u00c2\u00a0Blake Leyh<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and of course the extraordinarily talented musicians from NO and performing there — in episodes 11 through 21 including Steve Earle, Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack<\/a>, John Boutt\u00c3\u00a9, Walter “Wolfman” Washington,\u00c2\u00a0Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty,\u00c2\u00a0Donald Harrison<\/a>, Dr. Michael White, Jonathan Batiste, Wanda Rouzan, Deacon John, Rebirth Brass Band,<\/a> the Iguanas, Little Queenie, Leroy Jones, Evan Christopher,\u00c2\u00a0Henry Butler<\/a>, Bonerama, Galactic,\u00c2\u00a0Aurora Nealand, the Dirty Dozen,\u00c2\u00a0a raft of high school marching bands, members of the for-this-series-only Brassy Knoll and Soul Survivors . . . this highly selective list probably misses mentioning your favorites.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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But one point this all suggests is that if producers, directors and viewers were brave enough, many U.S. cities could give rise to a tv series organized around their unique cultures, music and food, businesses and governance included. There doesn’t have to be a natural calamity to launch the drama, almost any social conflict will do as a basis for stories of bands, their audiences and milieus toughing it out where, as Simon notes, 83 percent of Americans now live. The episodes could be held together by the soundtracks of these cities, in harmony or dissonance as plot and character require. For example:<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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