Renowned New Orleans jazz trumpet player Leroy Jones will headline the Come Sunday Jazz Brunch at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities on Sunday, April 24. Jones, a member of the New Orleans Jazz Hall of Fame, has led the Leroy Jones Quintet for decades and has toured with Della Reese, Eddie Vinson, and Harry Connick Jr., among others. Since 2004, he has made appearances with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Dr. John.
“Having a guy like Leroy Jones in your band is like having LeBron James in your band. You know every time you go on stage there’s going to be fireworks,” Harry Connick reflected. Jr.
Jones has a unique sound and style, effortlessly blending the swing and musical sensibilities of Louis Armstrong with the crisp lines and phrasing of the Bebop era and beyond. The late Charlie Sims, chef and co-owner of famed New Orleans music institution Donna’s Bar & Grill, said, “You can always recognize Leroy’s horn when you hear it. You know it’s Leroy – there’s only one horn like that, Leroy Jones!”
At the age of 12, Jones became a bandleader in Danny Barker’s Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band. The young marching band became so popular that the local musicians’ union forced them to disband. Leroy Jones, 16, joined the union and formed his own Hurricane Brass Band. These two groups, along with the emergence of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band in the late 1970s, saved New Orleans’ unique brass band tradition, which had deteriorated significantly in the 1950s and 1960s. Orléans now has more brass bands than ever.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Jones remains a staple of the Crescent City music scene. You might catch him pedaling his Tremé bike through North Rampart Street in the French Quarter to a concert at Preservation Hall or the Palm Court Jazz Cafe.
Jones says the goal of his music is to “encapsulate all of these great experiences and influences” and “to ensure that great New Orleans music is performed authentically and with great respect for the artists who have come to me.” came before. Not in a fashionable old fashioned way, but with a modern swing that comes from my love of bebop and other forms of modern jazz.”
The Sunday, April 24 event features Leroy Jones in quartet form and is presented in partnership with the UNC Pembroke Music Department. This is the second in the three-part Spring 2022 Come Sunday Jazz Brunch series, sponsored by Aging Outreach Services and Ward Productions, and takes place outdoors from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with a local cuisine offered by Genuine Hospitality Catering.
Ticket options include Band and Brunch or Music only (cash bar); children 12 and under, free (brunch extra). Bring your own chairs or opt for a VIP table for six with umbrella, chairs and the best seats in the house. Please visit weymouthcenter.org for tickets.
The Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and is located at 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines.
Dr. Aaron Vandermeer is chair of the music department and coordinator of jazz studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He holds degrees in Brass Pedagogy (DM) and Jazz Studies (MM) from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he studied with NEA Jazz Master David N. Baker. . His areas of academic interest include New Orleans brass bands and trumpeter Leroy Jones, the music of Billy Strayhorn, and the state of jazz education in the public school system.
