If there is some small consolation in epic tragedies like the Titanic, Pearl Harbor, and September 11, 2001, it’s that musical composers have traditionally been able to channel a community’s grief into art. Penderecki’s “Threnrody for the Victims Of Hiroshima” and its considerably more optimistic jazz counterpart, Toshiko Akiyoshi’s “Hiroshima: Rising From the Ashes” are models from history. David Berger’s stylishly Ellingtonian portrait of the World Trade Center, “Windows on the World,” is a more recent example.

So it’s appropriate, in our nation’s most musical city, that musicians have responded to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath by putting their feelings about the Crescent City — and what happened to it — to song. Already, prominent Louisianans like Dr. John and Harry Connick Jr. have released Katrina-related albums, and Wynton Marsalis’s “Congo Square” (a paean to New Orleans, though not specifically to the incidents of 2005), recorded last year with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, will be released later in the fall. Now, on the second anniversary of the devastation, two important jazz trumpeter-bandleaders have dedicated album-length musical statements to a city in ruins: the New Orleans native Terence Blanchard’s “A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem For Katrina)” and Jon-Erik Kellso’s “Blue Roof Blues.”

At 45, Mr. Blanchard is a unique figure in contemporary music, perhaps the only one since Andre Previn and Benny Carter to divide his time between writing jazz (constantly touring and recording) and composing music for film (the latest of his 41 movie scores is the new “Talk to Me”). On “A Tale of God’s Will,” he has melded these identities into a jazz album with the lushly cinematic canvas of a 40-piece orchestra.

“God’s Will” grew from the music that Mr. Blanchard wrote for “When the Levees Broke,” Spike Lee’s recent documentary on New Orleans. The trumpeter started with four themes written for that documentary, then re-arranged them and supplemented them with original pieces, as well as pieces by the other members of his current working band, including the tenor saxist Brice Winston, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Derrick Hodge, and drummer Kendrick Scott.

The cover of “God’s Will” shows Mr. Blanchard in silhouette, playing his trumpet atop the roof of his mother’s house. It is essentially his album all the way, though there are prominent spots for his bandmates, such as Mr. Parks on “Wading Through” and Mr. Scott, percussionist Zach Harmon, and a battery of other drummers on “Ghost of Congo Square.” But most of the tracks feature Mr. Blanchard playing his trumpet forlornly over a deeply classical background of slightly dissonant strings, using unresolved chords to convey the tension, drama, and general lack of resolution that now define New Orleans.

“Mantra,” written by Mr. Scott and orchestrated by Mr. Blanchard, begins with Mr. Winston stating the opening melody in a thick cloud of horns. The first solo is by Mr. Blanchard, working over the rhythm section, with keyboards and strings swelling behind him as his statement gathers intensity. The melody here is reminiscent of John Coltrane’s “Naima” — slow, romantic, but full of harmonic prickles. When Mr. Parks takes over, the background also switches between just the bass and drum and a larger horn section.

Not that the whole album uses strings in such a fashion, or sounds grandly classical. Some of the finest moments occur when Mr. Blanchard lets his imagination take flight, moving beyond both jazz and European precedents. “Funeral Dirge” uses a stark, open-brass melody that is reminiscent of what Mr. Blanchard used in his brilliant score to “The 25th Hour,” beginning with a marching-band snare drum figure that suggests a Civil War firing squad more than the Big Easy circa 2005.

Jon Erik-Kellso is one of many New York-based musicians primarily associated with traditional jazz and swing, but he’s enough of an instrumental virtuoso to play virtually any kind of jazz and pop. On “Blue Roof Blues,” he is joined by two key soloists: the longtime New Orleans-based clarinetist Evan Christopher and the gifted New York guitarist and occasional vocalist Matt Munisteri. “Blue Roof Blues” is obviously a far less ambitious project than “God’s Will,” as it features five musicians instead of 50, includes only of a few original pieces, and is not set up in suite form. But it is consistently full of irrepressible fun and contagious high spirits, which, it goes without saying, are endemic to the spirit of New Orleans.

Mr. Kellso and company include a few Dixieland warhorses, such as “Weary Blues” (which was already ancient when Louis Armstrong and Johnny Dodds recorded it in 1927) and the faux-exotic “Hindustan.” They also artfully repurpose “Panama,” a 1911 ragtime number from the very beginnings of jazz. This William H. Tyers composition originally had quasi-South American leanings, but they’ve been shaved off through the years by various jazzmen. However, Messrs. Kellso and Christopher, whose specialty is Caribbean-flavored jazz clarinet (in the tradition of the great Beguine-style players of Martinique), at once modernize “Panama” and bring it back to its Latin origins. Likewise, “Bye-Ya” was the only piece written by Thelonious Monk in Calypso rhythm, and Messrs. Kellso, Christopher, and Munisteri make it considerably more Jamaican.

The leader showcases himself as a composer and trumpet star on several pieces, including the ebullient “Door Number 4,” and the more somber “Blue Roof Blues.” This is Mr. Kellso’s equivalent of Mr. Blanchard’s “Funeral Dirge,” and he similarly utilizes achingly slow tempos and funereal press rolls. The title refers to the blue plastic tarps currently “protecting” a lot of ninth-ward rooftops with big holes in them, and which, one imagines, are about as effective as a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

On Mr. Kellso’s album, the most effective contrast is between the happy numbers and the mournful ones. On Mr. Blanchard’s project, similar meaning is drawn from the contrast between the string passages and the individual horns with the trio. “God’s Will” has the same overall feeling as the Lee-Blanchard film “Malcolm X,” an epic of historical proportions that’s also incredibly intimate. History can only take that form that when it’s your own personal history. Mr. Blanchard closes with “Dear Mom,” a musical description of his first visit back to his mother’s house after the devastation. He leaves us with the moving observation that although things, lives included, can be bought and rebuilt, “nothing will be as it was.”