Trumpeter Leroy Jones has embodied the spirit of New Orleans traditional jazz for over fifty years. His musicianship and dedication to forwarding the traditional jazz genre has won him an enthusiastic following around the world and induction into the New Orleans Jazz Hall of Fame at home.

Jones, born in 1958 in New Orleans, took up the trumpet when he was ten years old. When he was 12, he began leading Danny Barker’s Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, a group Barker established to revitalize and pass on the city’s then-endangered brass band traditions. Jones took up the torch, and today is known as “the keeper of the flame.” In high school he was a member of the legendary St. Augustine Marching 100 and formed the Hurricane Brass Band, comprised of Fairview alumni.

After stints on the road with Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Della Reese, Jones was recruited by Harry Connick, Jr., and he spent several years in Connick’s big band before forming the Leroy Jones Quintet, which continues to tour and record today. Jones is also a regular performer with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Jones tours the world, and has played all the prestigious festivals, including the French Quarter, Satchmo, and New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festivals. He has collected an armload of awards and honors, including several Offbeat Best of the Beat awards for trumpet and jazz band performances, and induction into the New Orleans Jazz Hall of Fame.

He is the subject of a 2018 documentary, “A Man and His Trumpet: The Leroy Jones Story,” by Cameron Washington, which received the 2019 Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Award for Documentary Film. He’s released some 10 albums, including a 2005 tribute to the Fairview and Hurricane Brass Bands and the 2016 “I’m Talkin’ “Bout New Orleans,” with Alonzo Bowens, Wes “Warm Daddy” Anderson, David Harris, Terrance Taplin, Helen Gillet, Todd Duke, Larry Sieberth, Jason Stewart, Shannon Powell, and his wife, trombonist Katja Toivola.