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

The Brass Solidarity band leads a march on the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 25 May 2025. Photograph: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

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

Trumpeters, trombonists and sousaphonists had lined up along the ice-slicked sidewalk or were balancing on the snowbanks, blowing up clouds of condensation.