[instruments warming up]
[laughter]
- Tat, tat, tat, tat-ta-ta-tat.
[applause, music crescendos]
[cheering]
- You can tell a New Orleans musician from anybody else.
They just got their soul in it.
- This music is a feeling.
Brass band is a different kind of language.
That's--that's a gumbo language.
- It's a New Orleans thing, man.
- The Pinettes are Black female musicians playing brass band music.
- We are sisters. We go eat. We go travel.
We do--you know, we actually family.
- You know, we've been doing this for 20-plus years.
- Even though there have been different iterations of the band,
it's a labor of love.
- We bring the sound of New Orleans to the world.
- Now here we come. Here we come.
[singing] Ooh, it's the train party, ain't it fun?
'Cause there ain't no city like the one I'm from
Second line, the DJs up in the house
Say there ain't no city like the one I'm from.
- Brass band is a heartbeat.
- If it's in you, it's in you.
If it's not, it's not.
I was born with this in my blood.
- It's street music, it's heart music, it's love music.
- It's a feeling.
- We're more than just a band; we're an experience.
- Once people come to the show, then they'll never forget
who are the Original Pinettes Brass Band.
- I think when they hear us, they're like, "Oh, okay.
They can play."
But then when they see us, they're like, "Oh, wait."
- They're like, "Man, that's women? Y'all sound great.
- It's not much different from what we experience
as a Black musician.
We still have some of those same barriers,
and now we add female on top of that.
- I don't think, like, a lot of male bands have the camaraderie
and the chemistry that we have,
and that's what comes forth in our music.
- The chemistry is undescribable.
It's like nothing that you ever seen before.
- Everybody brings their own unique flavor.
[upbeat music]
- Get a life!
- Christie is the boss. Snare player. Band leader.
- Christie cool. She been holding the band down for years.
- She's gonna clown,
but when it's time for business...
- Oh, yeah. - It's a whole nother story.
- She's the mom.
- Demaries with the tuba.
- She's real quiet, but tough.
Play that tuba like she have a lotta, lotta sound.
- Oh, she holds it down.
That tuba, that's the bass.
[tuba playing]
- Tasha's the maestro.
- If you say it, she can play it.
- The musical genius.
- Tasha go crazy in the band. I ain't gonna even lie.
She see potential in you, she gonna push you.
- Yeah, that's Madam Music there.
[saxophone playing]
- Dionne, our trombone player.
- The silent storm.
- She's, uh, always in her own world.
- She's--she always in her own world.
- Ooh, and she think she my mama.
- Then we have our trumpets.
- Jazz, the Energizer bunny.
- She always acting a fool.
- She might put her horn down, she gonna dance, she gets on the mic.
- She's the clown. She's our dancer.
She can play her horn.
- She brings a youthful energy.
- Careese. - I call her Shabazz.
- Careese is like the one that keep us calm.
- She's very quiet. I know the music is getting to her
when I see Careese patting her leg, snapping, that's how I know.
I say, "Okay, we doing a good job."
- Veronique, I'm just gonna call her my schoolteacher.
- She's a great listener.
Amazing friend and sister.
- It's like my right hand, but she's on the left side of the stage.
- My right hand one man.
- Little baby boy. - His mom was in marching band with us.
- He's one of the most up-and-coming musicians, like, in the city.
[cheering]
- What's important to me is that when I play, you feel it.
- Movement is, like, something that gets inside of you.
- You gotta get a little movement. - I can't help myself.
My feet, they just go to do some shit on their own.
It's a New Orleans thing, man. Second line.
That's how we send our people home, I mean.
- Celebration.
[singing] This is the way we roll, we roll
- What's interesting about New Orleans music is,
we emphasize the upbeat.
[singing] This is the way we roll.
- See, the upbeat is what gives it the hop.
That's a lot of the African rhythm.
- The enslaved people at the time had their Sunday off.
So they would go to Congo Square, and that's like a sacred ground,
and they would dance.
And people would usually equate it to, like, the bamboula.
You might wanna dip with it.
You might wanna back it up with it.
You know, however you wanna do it.
That's why Congo Square is so important to the musical history of New Orleans.
Even if you study at the greatest conservatory,
they can never teach you what you can learn at Jackson Square.
- It's often imitated, but never duplicated.
- What separates us from a lot of the bands in New Orleans,
we put on a show.
- We feel each other's emotional vibe through the instruments.
Good and bad, but always fun.
- It's a collective of all of our individual experiences.
Sisters, mothers, and whatever we need to be,
because that's the role of Black women.
- Brass band, street music, whatever,
it's gonna outlast all of us.
- This band here, we lit. - Yeah.
[singing] 'Cause there ain't no city like the one I'm from