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Featuring New Orleans Artists "TREMÉ"

A collage of trumpet, guitar, spoken word, and song, Tremé honors the 300 year old neighborhood, known as the birthplace of Jazz, and therefore, the birthplace of American music. This collaboration between Asali DeVan, Ben Hunter, and Troy Sawyer tells a small part of the rich story of the nation's oldest African American community, which like so many African American communities today, from Harlem to Inglewood, is in danger of extinction from gentrification. Part celebration, part protest, part pure artistic brilliance, Tremé is a salute to the importance of place in the lives of the people who call it theirs.

		Homegrown artist, Ben Hunter, has been in the New Orleans music scene for nearly twenty years and has produced an award winning music video and four successful CDs. After a three year battle with epilepsy, Hunter was featured in the 2006 documentary Baptized at Katrina. He wrote and performed the tribute song "We the People" for the documentary, which was inspired by his own and his loved ones' experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina. Since then, Hunter has been developing his unique style of acoustic reggae, playing with another guitarist and occasionally a drummer, in clubs around New Orleans. He recently signed a distribution deal with Kufala Records of Los Angeles for his 2002 album Voodoo Reggae.		Mother, daughter, lover, educator, neighbor, community organizer, event producer, gardener, cook. Most know her by her many pursuits, but the way writer Asali DeVan knows herself and the world around her, is through her exploration of the word. Rooted in the cultural soil of New Orleans and watered by the writings of her literary idols, Kalamu ya Salaam, Sonia Sanchez, and Toni Morrison, Asali has grown to bask in the sun of her literary heritage-from the sages who transformed pharaoh to God in Ancient Khemet, to the spy boys who chant the way clear for big chiefs on Mardi Gras day. Having had the privilege of presenting on stages and in classrooms across the country, Asali DeVan is currently creating her definitive work. Her examination of how the flood of 2005 transformed the lives of women in New Orleans is being prepared for production on Broadway.		Rising form the banquettes of New Orleans, trumpeter Troy Sawyer is well-known as a consummate composer, arranger, and producer. He has spent his fifteen year career honoring the legacies of legendary musicians whose talents he has proven to be the deserving heir to-from his teachers Kidd Jordan, Alvin Batiste, and August Floury, to his grandfather, Louis D. James Sr., double bass player for Louis Armstrong. A world-traveled player, having opened for the likes of Lala Hathaway and Wynton Marsalis, Sawyer's audiences describe his music as soulful, innovative, and diverse. But if he had to sum up his sound in a word, he'd call it CHROMATIC.
		Voodoo Reggae album		http://www.myspace.com/asalinjeri		http://troysawyermusic.com

Additional performing artists include Boston's own, Berklee's Hip Hop Ensemble, known for transforming the sample-based art form of Hip-Hop into a live band experience. From Japan to California, with backgrounds from gospel to classical, this group fuses the diversity of their cultures and skills-as multi-instrumentalists, with their love and appreciation for the artistry of hip-hop. Comprised of Berklee's finest students, the Hip Hop Ensemble is directed by faculty member, Danielle Scott, who was most recently nominated as "Best Female MC" by Boston's Mass Industry Committee (M.I.C).

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