Nola Gay

New Orleans’ Treme Brass Band continues OCC’s Legends of Jazz Series

Percussionist Benny Jones, the founder and leader of the Treme Brass Band, has been performing in New Orleans for most of his life. His band, a celebrated vestige of authentic Americana, has toured extensively in the United States, Europe and Japan, exposing other cultures to traditional New Orleans band music.

Treme has recorded two CDs, Gimme My Money Back (Arhoolie) and I Got A Big Fat Woman (Sounds of New Orleans), with a third in the works, and was featured in the Spike Lee film When the Levees Broke, the 2010 Darren Hoffman film Tradition is a Temple, and the HBO series Treme, which starts its second season on April 24.

The band is New Orleans-flavored through and through, distilling its particular gumbo/ jazz from the Treme neighborhood of that city. Think of traditional funeral parades in New Orleans and you can hear Treme Brass Band’s music in your head.

Jones will bring his eight-piece band to Storer Auditorium at Onondaga Community College, 4585 W. Seneca Turnpike, on Saturday, March 4, 8 p.m., as part of the Legends of Jazz Series. All tickets set aside for the general public have been distributed. For those with tickets, remember that seating is limited and on a first-come, first-seated availability basis. Tickets do not automatically guarantee seating to the show.

Tell me about the numbers and instruments in the Treme Brass Band.

We’re coming up there with the tuba, the bass drum, the snare drum. You also got trumpet, saxophone, trombone, clarinet and we’ll have the banjo too. It depends on the gig. Sometimes we mix it up and double up on the saxophone and trombone.

How and when did the Treme Brass Band come about?

The Treme Brass Band started around 1995 or ’96. A friend of mine had a club and on Tuesdays it was seafood night. So we went down with a 10- or 12-piece band and did a kind of jam session, an audition. We went down there the following Tuesday with an eight-piece band and asked a lot of cats to sit in with me. And that’s how Treme got started, in that saloon on seafood night. We played there for 2½ years.

Tell me about your musical background.

My father Chester was a drummer.

He performed with the Preservation Hall Band {among others}.

My older brother Eugene was also a drummer and performed with Clarence Henry on Bourbon Street for many years. I started playing when I was 15 but I really got proficient when I was about 32 when I started playing with the Olympia Brass Band.

How did you get involved in this kind of traditional music?

Traditional music has a long history.

It goes back to some of the older brass bands that we used to perform with. I’m the founder of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and I played with that band for about 20, 25 years. I couldn’t travel with the band because of my job and family so I backed off and I left the band. Then I joined another band, the Chosen Few Brass Band. I played eight or 10 years with them. Then I started my own band, the Treme Brass Band. We were all from some of the older brass bands: the Hurricane Brass Band, the Tuxedo Brass Band, the Majestic Brass Band, the Onward Brass Band. That’s where we got started, playing with some of the older brass bands as young kids. We try to keep that tradition alive and spread it to the young kids.

How and when did this tradition of New Orleans brass bands originate?

It goes back to the 19th century. It started out with the pleasure clubs and then with churches when they had to play a jazz funeral. When they didn’t have the money to bury the deceased the pleasure club would have a policy to bury the deceased and they would get a band to do a jazz funeral. And that’s why the jazz funeral has been a tradition in New Orleans.

How many brass bands exist in New Orleans today?

Oh, they got over 200 brass bands in the city right now. New young bands pop up every other week. We’re doing a parade tomorrow called the Krew du Deux and they got 18 brass bands.

That’s kind of a big organization that makes their own floats and costumes.

They’ve been doing that since 1965 or ’66.

Is this a full-time job for you? It’s like a full-time job because I’m retired. I used to be a truck driver.

I’m drawing Social Security now so all I do is play my music for a living now.

Treme has been described as a jazz jam band. Is that accurate?

No. When we play at clubs we always invite guys to sit in. But when we do certain gigs like weddings we don’t have jam sessions.

What are the origins of the parade music that you play?

We play New Orleans music like “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and “Bourbon Street Parade” and “New Orleans Mardi Gras” and all kinds of parade music when we’re marching on the street. When we play in clubs we mix in blues and jazz and r’n’b tunes like the Fats Domino tune “I’m Walkin’ to New Orleans.”

Of course “second line” is a tradition among New Orleans brass bands. What does the term mean?

That comes from the military.

The soldiers march first and the band comes behind the soldiers.

In a parade the brass band comes behind the people that are dancing. At a jazz funeral you play hymns and dirges. You play up-tempo second-line music after you cut the

body loose. We’re famous for doing all that. We play our music from the heart. When you got it in your head you can’t get lost. Everyone can take a chorus {of improvisation}.

Sometimes when we got a groove going someone can take another chorus.

Tell me about the Treme neighborhood.

A bunch of musicians have come out of the neighborhood. It’s around Armstrong Park, and Congo Square.

There’s a real value of musicians there. It was named for Claudia Treme in the 1800s.

How did Hurricane Katrina affect the musical culture in the city?

The hurricane put a hurt on all the musicians in the city. All the clubs closed down. The musicians were scattered: Texas, Oklahoma, Nashville. I went to Arizona for six, seven months. When we did come back there weren’t many people coming to the clubs. The houses were all damaged. We had to try to get the music going and get the people coming back.

Well, it sure sounds like you know how to have fun down there.

Yeah, you got to come down and check it out.

Leader of the pack: Frank Malfitano, shown here when he brought the Treme Brass Band to Armory Square in 1990, orchestrates another appearance with the outfit on Friday at Onondaga Community College.