Treme Bows on HBO

WAY DOWN YONDER IN NEW ORLEANS: Plenty of blogosphere buzz on Treme, the new HBO series from The Wire creator David Simon, which premieres this Sunday. The show takes place in the post-Katrina Crescent City neighborhood of its title—pronounced truh-MAY for all you bourgeois tourist types—and focuses on the rebirth of the city’s musical heritage through its characters, which include a trombone player, a chief, a civil rights lawyer, a DJ and a Mardi Gras chief. A love letter to the city’s rich cultural tradition,Treme intersperses actual artists, like Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint and hometown trumpet player Kermit Ruffins, as themselves, alongside Steve Zahn, Melissa Leo, John Goodman and The Wire veterans Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters. (4/9p)