Gwen Thompson

Host of Music Inside Out

Michael Pellera

Jazz

Chair, Jazz: Assistant Chair, Jazz Piano and Composition

Gregg Stafford

Trumpet

Detroit Brooks

Banjo

Detroit Brooks, famed session and touring guitarist of the New Orleans music scene, has the most recognizable face in the city.

Hot 8 Brass Band

Band

"The play the music that makes you glad to be alive" - ESQUIRE

Don Vappie

Banjo

Don Vappie is a world renown jazz musician and presenter from New Orleans. He leads the Creole Jazz Serenaders, a classic New Orleans jazz orchestra, as well as his various jazz and R&B combos.

Les Getrex

Claude Carre (Haiti)

Guitar

Morikeba Kouyate

Kora

Seva Venet

Banjo

Seva Venet conducts seminars and workshops on traditional New Orleans Jazz including history, repertoire, banjo, and ensemble styles.

Joe Cushenberry

Carl LaBlanc

Guitar

Carl LeBlanc is an American guitarist and banjo player. LeBlanc is most striking for his work in both avant garde jazz and traditional jazz.

Tom McDermott

Steve Masakowski

Guitar

Born and raised in New Orleans, Steve Masakowski has played guitar with most of the city’s greatest musicians.

Brian Seeger

Guitar

Dubbed “One of New Orleans’ best jazz guitarists,” by Gambit Weekly, Brian Seeger is on the forefront of the New Orleans music scene.

Sunpie Barnes

Band Leader

Barnes, in addition to being a musician and composer, is a naturalist, a full-time National Park ranger, a black-and-white portrait photographer, a television and film actor and a former professional football player with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Joe Dyson

Drums

New Orleans native Joe Dyson has certainly been one to watch.

Ellis Marsalis

Piano

Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of a musical family, with sons Branford Marsalis and Wynton Marsalis rising to international acclaim.

Mitchell Player

Bass

David Bandrowski

Guitar

A "savvy" and decidedly versatile guitarist" - Sing Out Magazine

Donald Harrison

Saxophone

Harrison has nurtured a number of young musicians including the young Grammy-nominated trumpeter Christian Scott (Harrison's nephew), as well as Mark Whitfield, Cyrus Chestnut, Christian McBride, and The Notorious B.I.G.

Freddy Lonzo

Trombone

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Lonzo is one of the most highly regarded practitioners of "tailgate" style traditional jazz trombone. His style is distinctly his own, but such influences as Kid Ory and Frog Joseph can be heard.

Leroy Jones

Trumpet

The legendary jazz trumpeter Leroy Jones is known to music lovers as the "keeper of the flame" for traditional New Orleans jazz and to critics as one of the top musicians ever produced by the Crescent City.