A special afternoon of music, memory, and meaning is coming to the Intentional Listening series, as musician and executive producer Ellis Joseph and creative producer Kyle DeCoste come together for a guided listening and discussion of “Made It Through That Water from the Free Agents Brass Band”. The event is Monday, March 9th, 2026, 2:00-3:00pm, in the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library in room 430.

The event is part of Intentional Listening, an annual springtime series designed to help audiences move beyond the noise of everyday life and engage with sound through curiosity and genuine attention.

New Orleans brass bands have never been mere entertainment. They are civic institutions, moving through neighborhoods with purpose and care, stopping at local watering holes, the headquarters of social aid and pleasure clubs, and the homes of community elders and ancestors. They mark grief, joy, resilience, and belonging, all in the same breath.

Made It Through That Water captures exactly that spirit. As the album's liner notes describe it, the record is "the sound of the city coming back together" in the years following Hurricane Katrina, a document of a community finding its footing, its voice, and its way back to itself. The title alone carries the weight of everything New Orleans survived: the floodwaters that broke the city open, and the long, uneven road toward healing that followed.

Why This, Why Now

The re-release of “Made It Through That Water” in summer 2025 feels timely. Two decades on from Katrina, questions about what the city has recovered, what has been lost for good, and who gets to tell that story remain very much alive. An event like this one, intimate, communal, rooted in listening rather than spectacle, is itself something of a brass band tradition. It meets people where they are and asks them to pay attention together.

RSVP: Intentional Listening with Kyle DeCoste & Ellis Joseph: A Listening and Discussion of "Made It Through that Water" - Tulane Libraries Calendar - Tulane University