The Minneapolis brass band bringing joy amid grief: ‘When people see us playing, it gives them hope’ | Minneapolis

A A week after a federal officer shot Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis, a troupe of brass instruments, percussionists and singers gathered at the murder site to play a thunderous and defiant rendition of the O’Jays’ Love Train.

Trumpeters, trombonists, and sousaphonists lined up along the ice-covered sidewalk or balanced on snowbanks, blowing clouds of condensation.

“People of the world, join hands!” » Alsa Bruno, one of the lead singers of the group, sang. “Start a love train, love train.”

The group of mourners and neighbors who had gathered around the memorial obliged, forming a train. Some laughed shyly as they joined the chain, shuffling and swinging, singing, jumping.

It was a moment of joy in the face of deep sorrow – sparked by Brass Solidarity, a group that came to rally against the Trump administration’s massive federal immigration operation in Minnesota.

The group has its roots in resistance: it was formed by musicians in 2021 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. For more than five years, the group has gathered once a week at the site of Floyd’s murder, to play a set of songs mostly from the civil rights era — A Change Is Gonna Come, This Little Light of Mine — as well as songs from other eras that fit the moment. Their slogan: “a sonic occupation for the liberation of blacks”.

The group now has around 150 members and openly welcomes any musician who wants to join. In recent weeks, these musicians have taken on an urgent new role.

After a federal agent killed Good — just a mile from where Floyd was murdered — the band also began performing in his memory. They later also began playing at the site where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by immigration officers. They sang and chanted at an “ICE Out” protest on the frozen surface of Lake Nokomis, and played When the Saints Go Marching In at a demonstration at the Target Center in Minneapolis, where demonstrators demanded that the retailer do more to protect ICE employees and shoppers.

Music is also, in a way, a service and an offering to a community under duress, said Tony Randazzo, a sousaphonist. “This is a community that is suffering from trauma – not just past trauma, but ongoing trauma. »

This is a lifelong trauma, he added — one that Twin Cities residents will carry for years. The Trump administration said this week it would scale back its operations in the region. Even if they keep their word, Randazzo said, many city residents are only beginning to confront what they experienced.

Music has been a way to process the hundreds of violent arrests in the Twin Cities, the grief of losing neighbors and friends evicted by the administration. Members of the group were also harassed and detained by ICE, Randazzo said — not at protests, but in their communities where roving patrols of federal agents stopped people on their way to work, in front of grocery stores and at bus stops.

“ICE takes people as vouchers, as trading cards,” Bruno said. “Many people simply don’t leave their homes because they fear being targeted. »

Sometimes only a handful of members show up. Other times, it’s dozens. Protesters, passers-by, neighbors also arrive, with different levels of musical expertise, with formal and informal instruments.

Everyone is welcome, said Bruno, who doesn’t play brass instruments, and so started by introducing himself with a kazoo and a harmonica before breaking into song. “If you come to the group and all you brought is an egg shake, that shake counts,” he said.

The group’s philosophy embraces the Twin Cities’ DIY and collaborative art scene. Puppeteers joined the movement, as did formally and informally trained dancers and percussionists. The group has a repertoire of songs, depending on who shows up. A few of the more experienced musicians help lead the arrangements, calling on some musicians for solos.

“In a moment where you want to fight and scream and scream and kick,” said Jordan Powell-Karis, who plays the bass drum, “we have this creative expression, a gesture of love and compassion and connection.”

In recent weeks, this gesture has been greeted with gratitude and support by people not only in Minnesota but across the United States and abroad. Instagram videos of the band playing at vigils and protests in subzero temperatures have been shared tens of thousands of times.

“We use songs from the civil rights movement because black artists before, our ancestors, used those songs to sing about our freedom,” Bruno said.

Residents who were unable to leave their homes wrote to the group that they watched videos of their performances on Instagram or listened from inside as the musicians marched through their neighborhoods.

“I saw that one of our videos on social media had been viewed about a million times and I was taken aback,” Powell-Karis said. “But I think when people see us playing, showing up, it gives them a little sparkle, a little sparkle, something to look forward to.”

The Monday after Pretti’s death, Randazzo tried to hold back tears, trying to stay focused on the music and his singing. Then he started singing Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.

As he sang the lines, “I remember when I lost my mind / There was something so nice about this place,” he recalled the moment he found out Good had been shot. He was at a school where he ran a music education program. He thought about the contrast between this pleasant neighborhood and the horror that had happened there.

“The song ends and my face is wet,” he said. “I didn’t even realize how much my body was feeling all these sensations.”