Community Spotlight by Sabrina Stone

The Original Pinettes Brass Band and The Preservation Hall Band are a natural fit. A family, a legacy, a group of amazing women playing their horns together for over three decades, ranging two decades in age, hailing from every part of Greater New Orleans, The Pinettes mirror our mission.

You can catch The Pinettes performing all around town and around the country, at the Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Satchmo Summer Fest, the Essence Music Festival, and the French Quarter Festival. They’re also tightly sewn into the community, handing out bagged lunches, throwing BBQs and holiday events, playing in houses of worship, and giving concerts and lessons for kids of all ages.

One afternoon, I hopped on a call with multi-instrumentalist and teacher Veronique Dorsey, who wonderfully represents the interweaving of schools, projects, and local community through her music, and seems to have a lot of fun doing it.

You’ve got homes in The Roots of Music and the Original Pinettes Brass Band. Anywhere else?

Been in Pinettes for over a decade, I teach at Roots, and I play drums at St Peter Claver [Catholic Church] on Saturdays and Sundays. My mom’s the minister of music so she plays piano. (She’s been playing for 60-some years now.) On Saturdays we do a praise team. The band is me, her, and a bass player, Brian Quezergue, and then on Sundays we have about a 50 piece chorus that sings and we do gospel music.

I’d imagine you were a bit too young to join the Pinettes the year they were founded, in 1991.

*The Original Pinettes play at the 2019 Daiquiri festival in New Orleans. (Photo: Paul Broussard)*

That’s the year I was born! I joined in 2011. Christie [Jourdain, lead band member] and one of the older members found me at a secondline in 2009 and were like, “There’s a girl playing trumpet. We’ve got to get her in the band!” I was like, “I don’t know about all that.” I knew the Pinettes were a household name. They had already started making their mark. I was like, “I don’t want to go mess that up.” A couple years later, Christie came up to me and said, “I remember your face. If you’re serious about this, I don’t care where you’re at. We’re going to work with you. Just come play.” So I went to practice that Tuesday, played a gig with them that Thursday, and I’ve been there ever since.

Are you the youngest member of the band?

That’d be me and Jazz Henry (her dad is Corey Henry). We got in the band around the same time but she’s four or five years younger than me, maybe even more. I was 21 when I joined. Jazz was, like, 15.

What’s it feel like onstage, being in such a loud, powerful all female band?

For me it’s a lot about the crowd’s energy because sometimes you get up there and you come in bringing the weight of the day, and then you feel the crowd’s energy and it brings you to a whole different place. What’s unique about the Pinettes is the chemistry that we have together, because the band that you see now has been together almost 10, 12 years, but also, we’re actually friends, so we lean on each other. The energy is transcribed in the sound that you hear.

There’s a lot of weaving in and out of instruments, which requires patience and listening to one another.

Yeah, definitely. We’ve got three trumpets, one trombone, and one saxophone. We learn how to balance so we don’t overpower each other. It’s a labor of love. At one point we had three trumpets, three trombones, and a saxophone. As time progressed, we lost some trombone players, [Na]Tasha [Harris] stayed, one of the trombone players hopped on tuba, ‘cause she was the original tuba player, so the formation you see now is what you get. I’m always hopping around because I play drums too, so there'll be some gigs where I’m playing bass drum, or snare. Tasha sometimes plays a soprano saxophone, or an alto, or a tenor, she flips all the saxophones, whatever’s needed at the time, we just do it.

How’d you get involved with Roots of Music?

My friend, Shawn Montgomery, came up to me at Satchmo Fest like, “Hey, are you interested in teaching kids music?” and I said, “Shawn, I tried that. I’ve been teaching for a while but my patience with music is very short–either you want to do it or you don’t” and she said, “It’d be with Roots of Music” and I was like, “Oh, those kids want to learn. Alright! What do you need me to do?” So I got in the room with her and Derrick [Tabb] and started teaching there about six months ago. I work with the trumpet players and the mellophone players. Sometimes I work with the woodwinds because my first instrument was clarinet, so I go back and forth with them.

It must be so rewarding to teach kids who really want to learn.

That’s the fun part, working with the beginners, because they’re just starting out. So to see them progress throughout the months… I have one kid, he’s barely 4-feet-tall and he plays pocket trumpet. At first he was “toot tootin’” on it and now he’s playing notes, reading the music. I’m telling the kids, “You used to underestimate Simian but he’s really playing that horn!”

What’s The Pinettes’ signature song?

A lot of people think “Ghostbusters” ‘cause we do that whole, “Who you gonna call? The Pinettes!” Definitely “Ain’t No City” ‘cause that’s our original song that’s become synonymous with us, that and “Get a Life.”

*The Original Pinettes Brass Band performs at Preservation Hall during the 2021 NOLA x NOLA festival shortly after the venue re-opened from Covid lockdowns.*

Do The Pinettes work with a lot of schools and non-profits?

Christie and Tasha have been working with [the non-profit] Girls Play Trumpet Too with Troy Sawyer that we’re all about to get more involved in this year. When I was the assistant band leader at McDonogh 35, [The Pinettes] would come help me out. Really, anytime a school reaches out, we’re always open to do things for kids. They’re the next generation–if we’re gonna keep this going, we gotta get them started early!

To learn more about The Original Pinettes Brass Band, see photos, videos, or get booking information, visit www.originalpinettes.com

Community Spotlight: Veronique Dorsey of the Original Pinettes Brass Band