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I have a brass pipe with threaded joints coming into the house from the street that has a leaking joint. I can't see how it can be tightened without loosening the joint at the other end of the pipe. Is the only solution to cut the pipe? And then reattach the two halves with a sweated straight joint?leak is at the red arrow

Marc
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You either disassemble it from its closest union, or start cutting.

If it leads to a pump, I'd advise installing unions at both ends of it, to facilitate replacements.

Simply tightening this pipe probably isn't the way to go. It's likely deteriorated at the threads and that's why it's leaking. You'll risk snapping it off in the fitting to get it watertight again, unless you take it apart, inspect the threads, and re-dope it.

Also, are you sure that's brass and not galvanized steel? If it is steel, where's your dielectric fitting? (that's why it's leaking). Even if it is brass, it's crappy: look at the color of that 2" nipple below it; that's made out of real brass.

You mentioned sweat fittings. Can this be taken back all the way to the first sweated fitting, so you could do away with as many (threaded) connections as possible?

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Mazura
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    Thanks, @Mazura. It's clearly not steel-- I took some steel wool to part of the pipe in response to your answer, and it's definitely brass colored and it's stamped "Alpha Brass" with an image of a mounted knight and the name "Chase" underneath. It IS odd that it's so different in color. Is there such a thing as crappy brass?

    In any case it does seem like it would be easier to go sweated copper back to that tee. Thanks.

     – Marc Jun 08 '16 at 21:29