If you’re looking for a new-to-you jazzy watch or listen, try one of these recommendations from guest blogger, Laura V!

Nineteen million people visit New Orleans each year so chances are a few of our readers have strolled down Canal, French, or Bourbon Streets. If you know what it means to miss New Orleans, this four-season set might be just the cure for your Crescent City blues. The show revolves around the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and her impact on residents, particularly in the Tremé neighborhood. There’s a dash of traditional New Orleans food and drink, police corruption, racial themes, and a whole lot of genuinely fantastic musical performances, often by famous NOLA musicians. There were criticisms about the storylines being disjointed but I don’t need everything tied up in a bow so that didn’t matter to me. The acting from some of the real musicians left something to be desired but since I was thrilled seeing some of my longtime musical favs on screen, I was forgiving of that minor detail. It feels almost like a behind the scenes documentary. The pacing became slow in the last season but up to that point I was happy to be transported into the realistic, gritty, community of characters of Tremé.

You can find all four seasons of Tremé in the library catalog.

Seven hundred miles north of New Orleans lies the city of Cahokia, Illinois. In this noir detective story set in the 1920s in an alternate history, Cahokia is a part of the United States because it, and some other Native American civilizations, held their ground and were incorporated into the United States. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Andy Ingalls and his voice acting is top notch. Although Spufford is British and not a Native, or any other kind of American, he obviously took the time to learn more than most U.S. citizens probably know about Indigenous American cultures and he weaves that knowledge into the story. I enjoy thought exercises disguised as well-written books. I found myself pulled into this imaginary culture and I was delighted to learn about the people and customs. Themes include cultural and racial communities both living harmoniously and at odds, police corruption, and jazz music.

Two hundred fifty-three miles west of Cahokia is the setting of the prohibition-era books about a Latinix witch passing for a white woman. Her immediate family lives in a boxcar, similar to many of our community’s immigrant rail workers during the same time period. Kansas City had three waves of Mexican immigration between 1900 and 1920. (Smith, Michael M. “Mexicans in Kansas City: The First Generation, 1900-1920.” Perspectives in Mexican American Studies 2.32 (1989): 34-36.) Luna, known as Rose to her employer and other whites surrounding her, leads a double life. She works for a newspaper during the day and runs a speakeasy at night. That’s not the only secret, though. She’s also a bruja, a Mexican witch with inherited powers. She leads a thrilling life on the wrong side of the law and has to face some formidable enemies of the prohibition underworld. These books contain themes of racial prejudice, racial violence, lgbtq+ issues of the time period, and a bit of jazz music. Although not destined to become the Great American novel, this book is a fast-paced romp through the eyes of a very complex single dame in the 1920s.