A trumpeter whose family tree is practically woven from brass will bring his horn to one of the oldest jazz halls in the country this Saturday. Wendell Brunious, Preservation Hall's first-ever musical director, headlines New Orleans Legends at the Dew Drop Jazz Hall in Old Mandeville on Oct. 10, with doors opening at 5:30 p.m. and music running from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
As reported by NOLA.com, Brunious and his band will perform New Orleans music built on swinging rhythms and timeless tunes at the hall, located at 430 Lamarque St. Adults pay $15 at the door, while students and children get in free, according to the same report. Preservation Hall creative director Ben Jaffe called Brunious “a son of the sacred tradition and a library of information and knowledge,” per NOLA.com, adding that he reflects “an incredibly valuable family history” and possesses qualities that make him unique as both a musician and an elder statesperson. Jaffe also described Brunious simply as “a musician's musician.”
A Family Built on Trumpets
Brunious grew up in New Orleans' Seventh Ward, the son of Juilliard-educated pianist and trumpeter John “Picket” (“Picky”) Brunious Sr., who composed and arranged for Billy Eckstine and Cab Calloway, NOLA.com's report notes. He is also related to Nazimova “Chinee” Santiago, niece of guitarist and banjoist Willie Santiago. Preservation Hall has described the family's musical lineage as one primarily flowered with trumpets, a dynasty that includes his older brother John Brunious, who also served as a Preservation Hall bandleader.
Brunious first picked up the trumpet at age 11 and began playing at Preservation Hall's 726 St. Peter Street venue in the French Quarter at just 23. By 28, he had become bandleader for 91-year-old Kid Thomas Valentine, making him the youngest musician ever to lead a Preservation Hall band, per the same account. He has since built a decades-long tenure there and continues his role as the hall's musical director.
The Hall Where Jazz History Still Breathes
Few venues carry the weight the Dew Drop does. The hall was built in a year many music historians identify as the birth year of New Orleans jazz, and it is considered the world's oldest virtually unaltered rural jazz dance hall, according to NOLA.com's reporting. Long before it hosted concerts for modern audiences, the building served a very different purpose: African American residents led by teacher Olivia Eunio founded the Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Association on May 5, 1885, to provide healthcare, burial assistance, and food to Black residents in Mandeville, according to Dew Drop Jazz Hall, with the Lamarque Street building itself constructed in 1895.
In the early 1900s, early jazz pioneers including Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Bunk Johnson, and Buddie Petit traveled across Lake Pontchartrain by boat from Milneburg to play Saturday night dances there, a history detailed by 64 Parishes. That migration made Mandeville one of the first places outside New Orleans where the music was regularly performed, and it put the Dew Drop on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000 as a rare surviving rural African American benevolent association building in southern Louisiana. The City of Mandeville acquired the hall in early 2000 through a civic donation from local philanthropist Jacqueline Vidrine and purchased the underlying land, making it the only early jazz landmark held in the public trust.
No Air Conditioning, No Amplification — By Design
True to its roots, the Dew Drop still operates without central air conditioning, relying on batten shutters for ventilation beneath live oaks. Seating includes about 100 first-come, first-served indoor spots, and attendees are encouraged to bring a lawn chair for the lawn outside. The hall sells beer, wine, sodas and water at a cash-only bar, while next door the ladies of the First Free Mission Baptist Church will sell hot plate dinners of fried chicken, fried fish and fixings.
Organizers ask attendees to leave smoking materials, ice chests, outside food and drinks, and pets at home. Parking is available in the lot across the street or on neighborhood streets, but NOLA.com notes that driveways must not be blocked.
Brunious's Mandeville appearance arrives at a moment when his fellow New Orleans musicians have rallied around him; as Hoodline reported, a benefit concert at Snug Harbor was organized this fall as he battles stage 4 small cell cancer. That same lineage of jazz pilgrimage across Lake Pontchartrain connects him directly to the icons who once made this same Mandeville hall their Saturday night stop, a thread Hoodline traced when the Dew Drop opened its fall season last month with a tribute to 1920s blues queens.
