A St. Louis band brings music to the streets during social distancing

Transcript

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Judy Woodruff: Finally tonight, as neighbors continue to try to socially distance, yet connect in some fashion with each other, the Red and Black Brass Band in Saint Louis has found a way to bring music to the streets of its hometown.

Local station KETC produced this story as part of our Canvas series.

Man: We are the Red and Black Brass Band, and we’re coming to your neighborhood.

Derochelle Coleman: I never thought that it would be in a situation like a pandemic that we would be playing, walking down the street.

Dominque Burton: One day, Ben, who is my roommate, the tuba player, he knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go outside and just play, Get out the house, because, you know, we had been cooped up in the house for so long.

Ben Kosberg: We didn’t do this to kind of be disruptive. We wanted just to kind of be additive.

Dominque Burton: So, he took out the tuba. I took out the trombone, and we just played for the neighborhood. The next day, our building manager told us that we had went viral on Twitter. We hadn’t even noticed.

And after that, we just decided, let’s put the whole band together. Let’s get our frat brothers involved and let’s get this thing on the road.

Derochelle Coleman: I have done it before all my life, you know, growing up in South Louisiana, you know, with Mardi Gras and all those things. And that’s always a joyous occasion, but not for something like a pandemic.

Ben Kosberg: We don’t announce because we — we’re a little worried that right now that, if we announce, more people would show up, and it’d be a little out of control, for safety reasons.

Derochelle Coleman: Hopefully, we can just try to continue to bring some good spirit and music to the people.

Judy Woodruff: Bringing the brass to the streets of Saint Louis.