Event
Tom Hook and Wendell Brunious at 419 Decatur St
Fee:
Free. The program is free and open to the public.Location: LAT/LONG: 29.954740, -90.064698
National Park Service French Quarter visitor center - 419 Decatur St, New Orleans, LA 70130
Dates & Times
Date:
Time:
Duration:
Type of Event
2:00 to 3:00 pm Central Time
Description
Tom Hook and Wendell Brunious
Friday at 2:00 pm
At the National Park Service French Quarter Visitor Center
419 Decatur St, New Orleans
This program is free and open to the public.
Tom Hook is a veteran pianist, composer, and arranger who brings his years of experience in the entertainment industry – from theme parks to riverboats – to any stage he graces. The veteran performer, who is at his best when playing energetic traditional jazz, grew up playing in rock and jazz bands around his native Kansas City, and took to the river as an entertainer and bandleader on the Mississippi Queen, the Delta Queen, and other venerable boats. When not on tour or working with his various entertainment projects, he performs regularly on the New Orleans riverboats with his New Orleans All-Stars, at Preservation Hall, or at other clubs. He wrote the one-man show, “Becoming Jelly Roll,” and starred in the National WWII Museum’s “Jump Jive and Wail, the Music of Louis Prima.” He can also be heard as voiceover talent in commercials, and has recorded music for video games.
Wendell Brunious embodies the spirit and history of everything that is New Orleans jazz: intensely qualified musicianship, deeply woven family ties, the sense that music is a conversation, and an unquestioned passion for the craft and the art. Brunious, who has been playing jazz-based trumpet since he was a youngster, was in 2023 named the first-ever musical director for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, arguably the most enduring and well-known symbol of a cultural force and art form. Wendell Brunious began playing trumpet at age 11, and he credits his musical growth to his tutelage under sax master and bandleader Harold Dejan of the Olympia Brass Band. Brunious also studied under Danny Barker at Southern University, and in the 1970s he continued to cut his chops playing with the old line brass bands and in clubs on Bourbon Street. He hustled his way into gigging at Preservation Hall in the late 70s, and was named bandleader just a few years later. Over the years, Brunious has performed with a top-shelf artist roster, from the Dirty Dozen and Tuxedo brass bands to Harry Connick Jr., Wynton Marsalis, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry and many others. He has recorded several of his own albums, guested on many more, and, most recently, received acclaim for his work on the soundtrack to the hit Netflix movie, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman.