Great New Orleans trumpeter and vocalist Gregg Stafford spent much of his childhood in the Central City neighborhood. He saw lots of parades, often sang in church, and developed a real love of music.

When it came time for high school, Stafford had the chance to join the school band — if his mother approved. So he told her, “I don’t have an elective at the moment, so the band instructor asked me, would I be interested in music? ‘Oh no, no, no, no; I don’t have no money to pay for no horn, so you can just scratch that,’” she told him.

As film production work pours into Louisiana, a nonprofit media arts group is helping locals access jobs and cultivating a more robust local film community. 

Communities to the north are dealing with flooding from the swollen Mississippi River. But the Port of New Orleans is not expecting any interruption of shipping traffic.

This week the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation kicks off its sixth annual free conference. The Sync Up event brings entertainment industry experts to New Orleans as a way to help local artists get a grip on business trends. This Friday and Saturday morning - April 26 and 27 - and next Friday and Saturday morning - May 3 and 4 - Sync Up has free panel discussions at the New Orleans Museum of Art, from 9am to 12:30 pm. Registration is recommended, at www.syncupconference.com.

A beaver with Cajun accent makes a fashion statement this week on Out to Lunch! Cree McCree takes the nutria, the rodent that is eating the Louisiana wetlands, and turns the nasty-looking pests into fab-looking fur fashion.

Cree talks to Peter Ricchiuti about feeling good about wearing fur again in her Righteous Fur.

Saxophonist Joshua Redman grew up in Berkeley, California, a very high achiever academically who turned to music for fun.

“I loved music, and I loved listening to it and I loved playing it, but I wasn’t serious about it. Music was kind of an escape, it was kind of a relief for me from the more rigorous aspects, the more studious aspects, of academics,” Redman says. “That was kind of how I let myself go and have fun.”

Today marks the start of the National Crime Victims’ Rights Week. A New Orleans non-profit is taking part in the Justice Department project.