Saturday July 11, 10:49 AM

Q&A-New Orleans trumpeter Ruffins dishes up new music

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Fedora askew, bandana peeking out beneath it, Kermit Ruffins is a presence seen and felt throughout New Orleans: playing trumpet, singing and leading his Barbecue Swingers before packed houses every week at Vaughan's Lounge and Bullet's Sports Bar. He also presides over his own new joint, Sidney's Saloon, even tending to a grill full of sausages or a pot of turkey legs, right out on the street.

With his new CD, "Livin' a Treme Life" (Basin Street Records), Ruffins honors the neighborhood he discovered in his teens -- a hothouse for jazz culture that still inspires him. And when David Simon's HBO series "Treme" (airing in 2010) captures that life in fictional form, Ruffins will be among the principal cast, playing himself: Who else could embody his style and spirit?

Billboard: What does the "Treme life" mean to you?

Kermit Ruffins: I grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward. But around 15, I went to school in Treme. I met tuba player Philip Frazier and we started the Rebirth Brass Band. I never went back. In Treme, it was Mardi Gras every day, a celebration, with great musicians hanging out, playing, teaching you things. I learned traditional jazz from guys like (Anthony Tuba Fats Lacen). And he was the one who got me barbecuing on the street too.

Billboard: How do you relate that on the new CD?

Ruffins: I just tried to start from where I started, with songs like "Didn't He Ramble" and "Red Dress," some of the first tunes I played with Tuba Fats, and "Apple Tree," which I can remember hearing the Dirty Dozen play as they marched up and down the street. And all the way through to when I was watching the Democratic convention in Treme, and I heard someone sing "I Can See Clearly Now," and I knew Obama would get elected.

Billboard: Do you remember those first gigs after Hurricane Katrina, while the city was still in ruins?

Ruffins: I remember playing at Vaughan's. They had electricity, and they were burning wood outside to kill the awful smell in the air. There were tears in some people's eyes. Before the storm, the spiritual aspects of the words to each tune were strong for me. But after, they quadrupled. That was the saddest gig I ever played but in a sense also the happiest because we were coming back.

Billboard: How did your acting in David Simon's HBO series come about?

Ruffins: One day my manager said, "David Simon wants to come to your house and talk to you." We sat and talked for a few hours, and he told me that he was going to have some writers follow me around and that he'd mail me a script in a year. When that script arrived, I couldn't believe it. The part -- I guess it's got to be about the easiest thing to do: Stand up, be myself, smoke weed and barbecue, and hit my lines.

Billboard: Will it change the public perception of New Orleans?

Ruffins: People are going to finally get it. David's team is not taking anything for granted. They really want to get it right, and they went to the right people. David is not the kind of cat who's going to give people what they think New Orleans is, he's going to give them what New Orleans really is -- the brass bands, the second-lines, the Mardi Gras Indians. All of it.

Billboard: With your raspy voice, your bright trumpet tone and your way with a crowd, it's hard not to think of Louis Armstrong. How did he affect your music?

Ruffins: Pops was the best thing that ever happened to America. When I first heard him on the radio I was a teenager already, but I didn't know who Louis Armstrong was. I heard that trumpet and I couldn't believe it. Soon after, I was ordering a sandwich and I looked at a jukebox and it said "Louis Armstrong." I played "When You're Smiling," and before I bit into a hot sausage sandwich, I heard that solo and I was hooked. I got a bunch of videos. I knew right away that I wanted to put on a suit and have a band like Louis did. I said to myself, "That's what I'm going to do."

(Editing by SheriLinden at Reuters) (please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)