Only New Orleans (2015)

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the coast off New Orleans with horrific force. It was the worst natural catastrophe in recent American history, with over 1,800 casualties and one million people displaced in the region. This film recalls those dramatic events, shows interviews with survivors and gives us a feel for how this extraordinary city and its people continue to find the inspiration to push on, buoyed to an unrivaled extent by the power of music. 'Only in New Orleans' is something you hear often in the city, particularly as a defiant jab at certain conservative politicians who 10 years ago would have just as easily left the whole place under water forever. Yet the city forms the roots, to a significant degree in some cases, of musical genres from jazz, R&B, and rock 'n' roll to soul, funk, reggae and hip-hop. Musicians including Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, James Andrews, Ivan Neville, Davis Rogan, Jon Cleary, Big Freedia and Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill as well as employees from the city's emergency task forces tell their stories of the power of music and of the destruction of Katrina. ONLY NEW ORLEANS is an evocative story of disaster and of the abilities of people to keep on living in the aftermath, and in the case of New Orleans, to do so by harnessing the inimitable force of music and celebrating life in the face of death. "Trumpet Black" represents a special instance of this strength of spirit. An up-and-coming star on the music scene in New Orleans, Travis became ill and died while on tour overseas. His tragic fate became an essential element of the film while the city celebrated the young star's passing for over two weeks with funeral processions that transformed into rollicking parties - and all of this in a city whose defiant and creative population has managed to reinvent itself in the 10 short years since its greatest disaster.