Treme

I first visited New Orleans in the fall before the flood. The next time was 18 months afterwards. Those two occasions made me fall in love with its tattered, faded and resilient charm, and I was ready to resume the affair even before I watched HBO’s latest dramatic series,Treme (pronounced Tre-May).

The creators of The Wire, one of the best shows ever, have nailed it with this series, placed in the Crescent City three months after Katrina. Many veterans of that revered program populate this effort. If you have ever been to New Orleans, the opening scene will choke you up. A group of veteran jazz men gather to stage a mini parade through the cluttered, wasted streets of their city, perfectly symbolizing their pride and determination. They are belatedly joined by a trombone player, arriving via a taxi he is too poor to afford (a theme repeated throughout the show’s debut). The first notes you hear are enough to convince you that he is a master, albeit one with domestic issues.

There follows a montage over the credits, depicting scene after scene of cruddy walls, each with a telltale rim of back, smudgy mold, where the high water mark of the flood has been left. You can almost smell the city’s pain here. That introduction was possibly the best I have seen, providing a visceral sense of New Orleans, and made me an instant convert.

Treme follows the paths of several characters, some of whom have ridden out the worst of the storm and are trying with great difficultly to rebuild, and those who are returning after their diaspora, with the same goal. The trombone player visits his ex-wife in her bar after the parade. She is looking for her brother, who is among the missing. Assisting her is a lawyer, who has her issues with the police. Her husband, portrayed by John Goodman, channelling his best Walter Sobchak, is a conspiracy theorist convinced that federal animus has created the flood.

A local radio DJ, hearing the band parading down the street for the first time since the deluge, leaps from his bed to join the march, leaving his sometime girlfriend to find her way to work. She owns and cooks in a fairly upscale restaurant, struggling like everyone else to make it under difficult circumstances. Returning to the city around the same time is a Crewe Chief, one of those whose job it is to direct a group participating in one of the city’s many parades. His appearance late in the initial episode in full regalia is a sight to behold.

This series is all about the music, which permeates every scene and is of a very high order. It is also about the food, and the sorrow, and the hope that makes New Orleans the special place that it is. Do yourself a favor and watch Treme. Then do yourself another favor and visit the city.