Welcome to Treme, a New Orleans neighborhood with a rich African-American history, especially in music. The neighborhood is the setting for the hit HBO show of the same name.

Brandon Franklin, a saxophonist and original member of a New Orleans brass band, has just died in a domestic dispute. Now the band tries to move on.

The city that played a major role in rock ’n’and roll, jazz and blues — think Armstrong, Bechet, Domino — never quite developed music into an industry. There’s little infrastructure and no large record labels or publishing houses. And, for many musicians, leaving New Orleans is essential to finding success.

One late band doesn’t stop the show from starting. When about 100 New Orleans residents gathered at the St. Charles entrance of Audubon Park — sun blazing — and found the festivities band missing-in-action, they walked to the sounds of their own RaRa chants and carnival radio jams in remembrance of the earthquake in Haiti.