Remembering a New Orleans Icon: ‘Uncle’ Lionel Batiste Dead at 81

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Lionel Batiste, the bass drummer, vocalist and assistant leader of the Treme Brass Band and the face of the Treme neighborhood’s bicentennial, died here Sunday. He was 81.


Benny Jones Sr., the brass band’s leader, confirmed the death. He said Mr. Batiste had been ill for about a month before he died, but did not specify the cause of death.


Mr. Jones said Mr. Batiste (pronounced buh-TEEST), a fixture on the New Orleans music scene known professionally as Uncle Lionel Batiste, had played the bass drum since childhood and had been with the Treme Brass Band since it was formed in 1995.


The clarinetist Michael White, another New Orleans musician, said Mr. Batiste had used his drum to stay afloat in the floods after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.


The “Treme 2012” poster is a photograph of Mr. Batiste. Toni Rice of the New Orleans Multicultural Tourism Network said that part of the money from poster sales would be used to help with Mr. Batiste’s medical and funeral costs.


Mr. Batiste was also frequently seen on the HBO series “Treme.”