Wendell Brunious was born October 27, 1954, in New Orleans, into a Louisiana Creole family with deep musical roots. His father, John "Picket" Brunious Sr., was a Juilliard-trained trumpeter who played with the Onward Brass Band, Young Tuxedo Brass Band, and Paul Barbarin, and arranged for Billy Eckstine and Cab Calloway. His mother, Nazimova "Chinee" Santiago, was the niece of guitarist and banjoist Willie Santiago. Brunious began playing trumpet at age 11, largely self-taught, and credits much of his musical growth to tutelage under Harold Dejan of the Olympia Brass Band, though he notably stayed home rather than join Danny Barker's famous Fairview Baptist Christian Marching Band, unlike contemporaries including Leroy Jones, Gregg Stafford, and Herlin Riley.
Brunious studied at Southern University, where he played with Danny Barker, and spent the mid-1970s playing dance music in clubs on Bourbon Street. In 1976, he substituted for his father in Albert "Papa" French's band for Mardi Gras, and by 1979 was playing regularly at Preservation Hall with Kid Thomas Valentine. Upon Valentine's death in 1987, Brunious was named leader of the group. He went on to play with the Eureka Brass Band, Lionel Hampton, Linda Hopkins, Sammy Rimington, and Louis Nelson, releasing his first record as a leader in 1986. His brother, John Brunious Jr., became a notable New Orleans trumpeter in his own right and a predecessor as bandleader of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band; his nephew, Mark Braud, is his successor in that role and now also leads Preservation Brass.
Brunious lived in Sweden from 2004 to 2011 before returning to New Orleans, where he has remained a regular performer at Preservation Hall into the 2020s. By his own count, he knows more than 2,000 songs, drawing from the Great American Songbook, traditional and swing jazz, and the golden era of New Orleans rhythm and blues, alongside his own original compositions. He has recorded seven albums under his own name and appeared on many more. In 2023, Brunious was named the first-ever Musical Director of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, a role that recognizes both his deep well of musical knowledge and his standing as a living link to the city's earliest jazz traditions.
