So – season one of HBO’s Treme just finished up. We really enjoyed watching it, but have to wonder what the rest of the country thought. The season finale had 931,000 viewers, which was down about 100K from the season premier. But all in all, those are decent numbers for a cable show. Unless you compare it to The Sopranos which according to Wikipedia had 11.9 million viewers for its season finale, after six seasons. Here’s a link to HBO Treme website that will open in a new page.

What is Treme, besides a television show? Again, according to my favorite informal go-to source Wikipedia Treme is a neighborhood officially “A subdistrict of the Mid-City District Area.” One of the streets that make up this subdistrict is “Esplanade Ave” which also just so happens to be a main cross-street of the New Orleans Fairgrounds, the location of our very own Jazz and Heritage Festival!

Dave Walker, a writer at the Times-Picayune, New Orleans’s excellent newspaper, has a fantastic series of articles each week discussing the minutia of every episode (who played what, what the songs were, how they tie in to the various themes, etc.) His series of articles, videos and more can be found here – but be careful because there are some spoilers if you aren’t caught up, or haven’t started watching yet.

One of the reasons we liked Treme so much was we could so easily recognize the locations, and musicians. Just off the top of my head I remember seeing Upperline Restaurant (where we once saw Saints QB Drew Brees having dinner with Cooper and Peyton Manning and their wives), The Spotted Cat, DBA (John’s favorite), and the Apple Barrel all on Frenchman Street, and plenty of Rue De La Course coffee shop mugs (of which we have a few around the office ourselves)- even if they were sometimes carried out of different coffee shop locations! As for musicians, we mention a few of our favorites in this blog entry here, and from that list, on the show we’ve seen John Bouttee (a couple of times), Paul Sanchez, Matt Perrine, Glenn David Andrews just to name a few. Matt wasn’t even show playing- he got an “acting” gig with his scene taking place across the Mississippi in Algiers Point at the Old Point Bar.

We could also identify with a lot of the emotional content of the series, having been through hurricane Katrina ourselves, and having our first floor condominium flood. The fights with the insurance companies, the SBA loan paperwork, wheeling our refrigerator out to the street – don’t get me started. BUT, that is behind us, and New Orleans is growing stronger every day.

If you are planning a trip to the Big Easy, and are considering our Jazz Fest Tour, you might really love Treme if you haven’t already seen it. To leave you with a final Treme related link, you can get a full time flavor of New Orleans by tuning in to our local radio station WWOZ online from this link. One of the main characters of the show, Davis McAlary (played by Steve Zhan), begins and ends the season working here. Of course, this is programmed in our cars and home radios. If you give us a call at the office, there’s a good chance you may catch a hint of WWOZ in the background!