In the weeks and months following Hurricane Katrina, much of the music made for and by the broken city of New Orleans was understandably mournful, the sound of a city and people shattered and abandoned. It’s not that there was a want for ambition - those months saw a heartening flurry of post-storm records and tribute concerts from the music community. But it was tough to get over the sense that that they were there to make sense of the melancholy.

This summer, Galactic released a post-Katrina album that could wake up the whole Gulf Coast. The New Orleans-based outfit primarily traveled in jam-band circles until their August release, “From the Corner to the Block,” a roaring block-party of a disc that marries the band’s slithery bayou funk with cameo vocals by some of the smartest, most progressive minds in hip-hop - Lyrics Born, Chali 2na of the defunct Jurassic 5, Boots Riley of the Coup, Mr.

Lif, Gift of Gab and the Digable Planets’ Ladybug Mecca - as well as Crescent City all-stars like Trombone Shorty and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and up-and-comers the Soul Rebels Brass Band. The idea of loading your record with a grab bag of guest stars has been sort of a gimmicky fallback since it was popularized most recently by Santana’s “Supernatural.” But “Corner” is a rollicking and often thrilling stew of styles that has very little time to look back.

It’s less a tribute to New Orleans than a fire under it. The project wasn’t always intended to focus on Katrina, said Galactic keyboardist Rich Vogel. In fact, it was already underway when the floodwaters came rushing in and the band found themselves, “like everybody in New Orleans, adrift for a while.” After tending to their homes and families, the band regrouped a bit north.