The 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival kicks off Thursday, April 24. Below are Gambit’s picks for some of the musicians and bands to see.
LeTrainiump
12:20-1:10 p.m., Congo Square Stage
Indie pop artist LeTrainiump Richard infuses his music with ’80s synths and ’90s R&B vocals to create an energetic, funk-infused pop sound that’s carefree and nostalgic. A native of Mamou, Richard moved to New Orleans in 2020, where his band quickly gained momentum in the city’s indie music scene. Last year, he relocated to Austin, Texas, but he’s still a presence in South Louisiana.
LeTrainiump has shared the stage with artists like Tank and the Bangas, Pell, Big Freedia and PJ Morton, to name a few. LeTrainiump and his band recently released their latest single, “Release.” — MADDIE SPINNER
Los Tremolo Kings featuring Margie Perez
12:35-1:20 p.m., Lagniappe Stage
Born in the back room of New Orleans Mexican restaurant Casa Borrega, Los Tremolo Kings bring a distinct spin to a classic Latin sound. To the untrained ear, the wah-wah pedal, tremolo, distortion and echo might sit exclusively in the surf rock section of the record store. But the more discerning will recognize the sound as a psychedelic, dub–style spin on more precise genres such as Peruvian 1960s cumbia (which was inspired by surf rock) and mariachi.
With guitarist Phil Vanderyken, bassist Rene Coman, drummer Doug Garrison and vocalist Margie Perez, the band’s sets have become mainstays at divey locals’ haunts like BJ’s Lounge and Madame Vic’s. Que divertido, indeed. — LIAM PIERCE
Flagboy Giz & The Wild Tchoupitoulas
1:30-2:15 p.m., Congo Square Stage
Since he dropped his first record in 2021, Flagboy Giz of the Wild Tchoupitoulas has become a standard-bearer for modern Black Masking Indian music and an integral part of New Orleans’ music scene. While other artists have incorporated Indian music into hip-hop, electronica and other genres, Giz isn’t so much combining styles. Rather, his music is a natural evolution of a sound that for decades has been the rhythm of New Orleans. That intrinsic connection can be felt not only in his funk and jazz beats and the Indian suits he wears, but also in his sharp, socially conscious lyrics.
Giz’s first Jazz Fest set in 2023 was one of those memorable barn burner shows on the Jazz & Heritage Stage that forced throngs of people heading to other stages to stop and marvel, and it’s nice to see he and the Wild Tchoupitoulas (as well as the crowd) will get the chance to stretch their legs on the bigger Congo Square stage this year.
Giz also will be interviewed by Matt Sakakeeny on Friday, May 2, on the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage. — JOHN STANTON
Kacey Musgraves, Gladys Knight, Youssou N’Dour, Andrew Duhon and more artists to see on the first Friday at Jazz Fest 2025.
Sabine McCalla
1:40-2:30 p.m., Lagniappe Stage
Sabine McCalla’s rich voice has the power to transport you to the past. The Haitian American singer moved to New Orleans in 2014 and has become a rising star in the city’s music community.
She grew up playing the strings, including the violin, along with her sister and fellow New Orleans-based musician Leyla McCalla. You can hear the influences of places she lived in her music, like folk from her college days in North Carolina and New Orleans soul, inspired by artists like Irma Thomas and Ernie K. Doe. McCalla’s songs “Save My Soul” and “Roads We Wander,” both from her 2018 EP “Folk,” have garnered more than million listens each on Spotify.
McCalla also will be interviewed by Steve Hochman at 4 p.m. Thursday on the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage. — KAYLEE POCHE
Grupo Fantasma
2:40-3:35 p.m., Congo Square Stage
4:55-6 p.m., Cultural Exchange Pavillion
When Prince asks you to back him and play his after parties, you know you’re operating in the upper stratosphere. Grupo Fantasma, a Grammy-winning, genre-leaping Latin funk collective from Austin, Texas, has shared stages with everyone from Wu-Tang Clan to Spoon to Sheila E.
Aside from Cumbia and Tex-Mex influences, Grupo Fantasma experiments with Turkish guitar psychedelia and Indian instrumentation, covers The Beatles and Chicago, and members even have a side project cover band called Brown Sabbath. Grupo Fantasma’s blend of virtuosity and party-starting energy promises some of Jazz Fest’s most infectious sets. — LIAM PIERCE
Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe
4:05-5:15 p.m., Congo Square Stage
From his early work with Lenny Kravitz and the Greyboy Allstars to his long tenure helming his namesake Tiny Universe, reedman and singer Karl Denson has long used jazz and funk as springboards for explorations into new sounds, genres and ideas. That approach has served him well, sparking collabs with a diverse mix of musical stars — jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette, James Brown trombonist Fred Wesley and the Rolling Stones, to name a few — and putting Denson at the center of the acid jazz scene in the ’90s and the jazz-forward arm of the jam band world that followed.
In New Orleans, KDTU’s extended musical family includes Ivan Neville, and keep an ear peeled for the band’s electric take on Cyril Neville’s “Gossip.” KDTU’s also covered a slew of Fela Kuti classics through the years, making their festival slot ahead of Seun Kuti prime time for a nod to the Afrobeat luminary.
Denson also will be interviewed at 2 p.m. Thursday on the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage. — JENNIFER ODELL
Dee Dee Bridgewater with Bill Charlap
4:15-5:30 p.m., WWOZ Jazz Tent
Jazz singer and overall legend Dee Dee Bridgewater stars on musical and theatrical stages alike and often pays tribute to legendary artists who came before her. She infuses jazz classics with her own distinctive voice and flair.
Over the course of her decades-spanning career, Bridgewater has won a Tony Award and three Grammys, including one in 2011 for her tribute to Billie Holiday, “Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie with Love from Dee Dee Bridgewater.” At Jazz Fest, Bridgewater will be joined by pianist Bill Charlap, known for his impressive interpretations of the Great American Songbook. Bridgewater also will perform as part of Detroit Brooks’ tribute to Danny and Blue Lu Barker on Friday, April 25. — SARAH RAVITS
John Fogerty plays the Festival Stage on Thursday, April 24.
Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys
4:20-5:20 p.m., Fais Do-Do Stage
Jeffery Broussard is an accordion master and a zydeco mainstay in Acadiana. After getting his start playing with his father Delton Broussard and his band the Lawtell Playboys, the younger Broussard struck out on his own with Zydeco Force in the late ’80s, which was a funky, versatile presence in zydeco until it disbanded in the mid-aughts.
With The Creole Cowboys, now going on almost 20 years, Broussard takes the sound a little closer to traditional Creole la-la music in an energetic, unstoppable zydeco show. — JAKE CLAPP
Goose
5:10-7 p.m., Gentilly Stage
Goose may share jam lineage with Dead & Co., but their sound bends toward crisp, radio-polished indie hooks rather than noodle-heavy detours. The band’s funky, groove-laden jams often give way to earworm choruses, especially on studio tracks.
Goose’s song “So Ready” is a good entry point: bright staccato twangs, a bassline dripping in funk and Top 40-ready lyrics build into a tightly packaged groove. Rick Mitarotonda’s guitar dances between clean structure and melodic exploration, all while his voice floats airily above.
The band’s Jazz Fest stop arrives just a day before the release of the new album “Everything Must Go.” — LIAM PIERCE
John Fogerty
5:30-7 p.m., Festival Stage
Despite being a band made up of California rockers, Creedence Clearwater Revival had an obvious love and fascination for the blue-collar South and Louisiana in particular, with songs like “Born on the Bayou” and “Proud Mary” and albums titled “Bayou Country” and “Mardi Gras.”
As the band’s principal songwriter, vocalist and guitarist, John Fogerty was largely responsible for hits like “Bad Moon Rising,” the anti-war anthem “Fortunate Son,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and a number of other songs Millennial Louisianans now know by heart because their dads played CCR on repeat in their trucks until the cassette tape broke.
Fogerty has had a long, successful solo career since the band broke up in the early ’70s, but he’s spending the spring playing many of CCR’s hits on tour. — JAKE CLAPP
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
5:45-7 p.m., Congo Square
When Fela Kuti died in 1997, the Afrobeat pioneer’s youngest son, Seun Kuti, took the reins of his father’s Egypt 80 band, a group the then-14-year-old had been performing with for most of his life. Three decades later, the younger Kuti has both sustained and expanded Fela’s politically charged, high-energy blend of jazz, funk, highlife and traditional Yoruba rhythms by delving into modern R&B, reggae and hip-hop on originals. He also explicitly honors Fela’s legacy by keeping his classic tunes in their live sets.
The band’s forthcoming release, “Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head) Deluxe Edition” — featuring Kamasi Washington, Damian Marley and POS — finds Kuti leading the large ensemble with bright-toned alto sax lines and hard-hitting socio-political messages. Speaking to Afropop Worldwide in 2024, Kuti called the album “a tale of class consciousness,” and he explained the title this way: “Heavy lays the head that wears the crown,’ fuck that. At least your head is lying heavy in a castle.” — JENNIFER ODELL
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct information about Seun Kuti’s upcoming release.
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