For Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes, passing on the musical culture and traditions of New Orleans has become a second calling.

The professional football player turned musician, bandleader, and park ranger seems intent on adding as many second callings to his already impressive resume as possible.

His latest effort to keep the culture alive comes in the form of a 312 page hardcover book he wrote with the Neighborhood Story Project’s Rachel Breunlin called Talk That Music Talk.

The project also received support from the New Orleans Jazz Historical Park, the University of New Orleans, the Surdna Foundation, and the Louisiana Division of the Arts.

True to the spirit of carrying on brass band traditions, Talk That Music Talk contains in-depth interviews with members of the Treme Brass Band, the New Wave Brass Band, the Storyville Stompers, and the Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club, among many more.

Barnes also serves as the principal photographer for the more than 500 pictures found in the book.

“I wanted to have something that really spoke to the sort of program that I had developed with the National Park Service called ‘Music For All Ages,’” Barnes said. “I tried to start it Katrina weekend. That didn’t work out so hot, so we started the first Saturday in January 2006.”

Every weekend since then, children from kindergarten age through 18 have had the opportunity to attend Music For All Ages workshops to learn brass band and traditional New Orleans jazz music directly from current masters, including the late Lionel Ferbos.

Barnes has spent the past two and a half years working with Breunlin to compile the book, which will be released on Wednesday, December 17, at an event at the Old US Mint from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“All these early students that were initially in the program, my son included, really got a grasp on playing with these musicians,” Barnes said. “They had an opportunity to have free lessons and learn the real traditional music, but also the etiquette of the music, how you dress, what songs you play for all sorts of different functions.”

Brass band traditions have been kept alive through street performances, Barnes said, so exposing the younger generation to veteran street performers creates a direct conduit to the future of the traditions.

“That’s what the book takes a look at, and it’s really about the tradition of passing along traditional music through ear training as well as other methods,” he said. “Folks often wonder how these things took place, and how they happened, and why it’s so vibrant in New Orleans…With this book, we blended 32 different interviews together to keep that alive.”

The young music students in Barnes’ program each chose a mentor to interview, and the mentors interviewed the children, leading to an interconnected web of history and learning spread throughout the book.

“It’s basically a gift to the city and to people who would really want to have an inside look at music making and at the lifestyle,” Barnes said.

The book release party at the Old US Mint is free and open to the public, and six brass bands will provide musical entertainment.