00:25This is Tim Wassberg from Fast Track Uncerted TV.
00:28I'm here in New Orleans for the New Orleans Film Festival.
00:31You know, there's so many things.
00:33I mean, they're talking about their lives, you know, and that's the hardest thing to have
00:36people do, especially when you're giving a snapshot of New Orleans music of that era.
00:41Yeah, well, you got to do your research.
00:45That's one.
00:46Like, you can't walk in there and not know what you're trying to get.
00:51And, you know, I love these musicians already.
00:55Freddie, Irma, I loved from, like, you know, I've known her music my whole life.
01:00And then Ellis I knew about, but I didn't know the whole story until I got here and I heard
01:06him play around town and then started digging a little deeper and then learning how he basically
01:11mentored every great modern jazz musician to come out of New Orleans for the last 30 years
01:18and, you know, just started to understand more.
01:20And then, yeah, and Freddie, I didn't know him until, I saw him once when I visited New
01:25Orleans years ago and I was like, this is, this guy is amazing.
01:30You know, blues was kind of my first love as a kid, like, learning how to play guitar.
01:36It's the real, it feels, yeah, it's, I mean, he's a Mississippi guy, you know, so it's,
01:40yeah, he's, but, you know, he's got that pot, that New Orleans style, you know, so it's
01:46a little bit different than, than this, the straight Mississippi juke thing.
01:49But, yeah, he's, I don't know, I love Freddie and, and then you get to meet him and Freddie
01:53is like the kindest and most humble.
01:55I mean, they're all.
01:56It was very hard for people to support their family, like a family with five or six, seven
02:01kids was, was scuffling and trying to make ends meet.
02:26One thing is there, it's like the, in the great tradition of Southern storytelling,
02:31like they know how to spin a good tale.
02:34I'm not, not saying that these are in any way fictitious tales, but they just know how
02:38to tell a story and that's like such a big part of the life down here, especially with
02:43the older folks, you know, maybe the young kids don't know how to tell stories because
02:46they're just glued to their phones all the time.
02:47But like, my mom's from North Carolina and, you know, my grandma, my dad's mother is in South
02:52Carolina.
02:53So I spent time in the South going up and like people just know how to sit around and tell
02:57stories.
02:58So is that just based out of an aspect of community?
03:01Because the one thing that you sort of interrelate, it's not just about these four people per se.
03:06Yeah.
03:06It's about those people that orbit around them in many ways.
03:10Definitely all part of the, the weave of, of the culture, you know, the storytelling.
03:15But that's the other thing about music stories, you know, like music is such a, um, for me
03:22anyway, and I think for a lot of people, like it, it's associated with the time in your life
03:28when you heard it, you know, and, and for, you know, for a generation of New Orleanians,
03:35like Irma's, you know, it's raining or don't mess, you know, don't mess with my man or any
03:42of her amazing songs.
03:43Like there's people in their seventies, eighties in New Orleans, like they grew up with that.
03:51They fell in love to that.
03:52They, you know, like it's very evocative, you know?
03:55Um, and, and yeah, and same with, with Ellis, you know, it's like he was, John Coltrane was
04:02interested in him before John Coltrane became John Coltrane, you know, the legend.
04:07Like he, and, and Ellis doesn't even really, the amazing thing about Ellis, like he doesn't
04:12even, well, rest in peace, you know, he, but he didn't care at all about celebrity or fame
04:20or making money off of it or anything.
04:22He was just a truly interested in the artistic aspect of it.
04:27And like the, the experimental aspect of it and the communal aspect of like helping these
04:33other people learn how to play.
04:35A bunch of musicians living in the neighborhood, not only that, my father, my brother, uncle,
04:41they was all musicians.
04:42I always want to be a part of the brass band music.
05:06You also don't want that history to fade of the families because you don't see that as
05:10much anymore.
05:11You see the old families carrying on.
05:12Yeah.
05:13What has been your experience?
05:14In fact, as you've seen around here in New Orleans.
05:17Yeah.
05:17I think New Orleans is unique in America to still have those traditions getting passed on.
05:24Yeah.
05:24You know, it's not certain things, you know, I, I would be a little worried about disappearing.
05:30Like, you know, there's after Freddie goes, like, I don't know how much blues, like, but
05:36the brass tradition is so strong.
05:38And, and, and the modern tradition that kind of Ellis helped start is like, that's not
05:42going to go anywhere.
05:43Like, and part of the reason is because, yeah, like the, there are these families of musicians
05:48that it goes back generations and, and there's still, that still goes on.
05:54And, you know, I don't know.
05:55It's, it's interesting.
05:57You know, I feel like I was just barely scraping the surface with this, with this film in a
06:02way.
06:02Cause it, it, it goes so much deeper, you know, like it goes, the history, it starts
06:08goes all the way back to the 1800s, what's still going on and playing out in these weird
06:12ways, but like, but yeah, there's all these, you, you, you talk to one horn player, oh yeah,
06:16that other guy is his cousin, or he married his sister.
06:19And then like, everybody's related.
06:21Like.
06:22Onward Brass Band, the Uweka Brass Band, Olympia Brass Band, the Tuxedo Brass Band, Majestic Brass
06:29Band.
06:30They were the oldest bands providing traditional music on the street during their time.
06:44My uncle, Uncle Lionel, the Batiste Band, they had a band called the Dirty, the Kazoo Band.
06:49They would go to the neighborhood playing kazoo, the ukulele, the banjo, and all of that.
06:54Perspective.
06:55I love it.
06:55I think it was, there was one over, was it one of Freddie King's guys would say, oh,
07:00we were on the plane, we're on the plane, and like, we're drinking, and people pay $5,000,
07:04and I'm like, shit, we'll go back to the ninth ward.
07:06Yeah, yeah.
07:07And Trink would like, man, we're living the high life.
07:10And it's interesting to see that perspective, because musicians and artists have always had
07:15that place in society, but they always remember a lot of times where they come from.
07:19Yeah, yeah.
07:21Yeah, well, that's, yeah, that's the interesting thing.
07:25I mean, also, there's this dynamic in New Orleans about in New Orleans and out of New Orleans.
07:31Like, people have, a lot of musicians, the ideal is to get out and tour.
07:37You can actually make money out there.
07:39It's hard to make a lot of money playing in New Orleans, but like, you can play every night
07:45of the week, if you want to, or you can play every week, or you can do whatever you want
07:49to do, and like, you can make some money, but like, I don't know, it just depends on
07:53who it is.
07:53I mean, someone like, someone like Trombone Shorty has gone out and like, made his name
07:58in the world, and he's huge.
07:59He still comes back here, and like, you know, he'll jump on the street in the second line
08:03and play, you know, I don't know, someone like Ellis didn't really leave all that much.
08:07He stayed here, he played every week at Snug for however many years.
08:10Yeah, but he had Harry and everybody who looked at him as their influence.
08:12And they knew where to find him, if they wanted to come see him, he would be, you know,
08:16at Snug Harbor every Friday night for 30 years, you know?
08:19I married into the family.
08:21I married Uncle Lionel, niece.
08:23In so many years, I played with that band, and I said, well, they need a brass band, so
08:26I got with Charles Joseph and Quig Joseph, Surreal South, Andrew Green, and a couple of other
08:32guys, we formed a band called the Dirty Tussons Brass Band.
08:42This project, I wasn't entirely sure how it was going to go as we embarked upon it.
08:51You have certain ideas, and then you have to kind of make adjustments along the way.
08:55Part of the thing was, you know, I had hoped for more interaction between the people, but
09:01then COVID hit, and that was impossible.
09:03You know, but I actually found that it was nice to just focus on one character at a time.
09:13Yeah.
09:13And that's how you shot it?
09:15Well...
09:16Where, obviously, you didn't jump around, you were with them.
09:18No, I was with everyone, you know, on different days, but they weren't all really together
09:21all that much.
09:22We produced, you know, the base of the film are those recording sessions, which all happened
09:29at the same studio, but they were kind of, like, on different days, you know, and then
09:33you go to their shows, and then you go to their house, and then you kind of see what
09:35you got, and what you might need to get to fill in the story, you know, and just kind
09:39of start building it.
09:40And then you step back and look at it.
09:43I'm, you know, I've done a lot of editing.
09:45That's, I would say it's probably my strong suit as a filmmaker.
09:48And so you look at it and just say, what's the best stuff that I have, and how can I
09:53focus the whole arc of this thing around that?
10:00How can I look at it?
10:06How can I look at it?
