The 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival picks back up on Thursday, May 1, for another four-day run at the Fair Grounds. With hundreds of performances, it’s hard to know where to start. So Gambit has some suggestion for bands and musicians to see on the second Locals Thursday of Jazz Fest 2025.
Corey Henry & The Treme Funktet
12:10-1 p.m., Festival Stage
Pound for pound, Corey Henry is one of the best musicians in New Orleans. Raised in Treme, he comes from a family with deep ties to the jazz and brass band worlds, including his grandfather Chester Jones and uncle Benny Jones. And his daughter, Jazz, plays with the Original Pinettes Brass Band.
Henry began learning music at an early age by watching the musicians in the neighborhood do their thing. He’s a phenom on the trombone, to be sure, but he’s also an incredibly charismatic band leader. His weekly gig with the Treme Funktet at Vaughn’s is so dimly lit you can barely see the band — but you can still feel Henry.
It also helps that the Treme Funktet are some the finest musicians in the city, including guitarist June Yamagishi and drummer Terry Scott Jr. It’s a tight outfit that can put out some of the best jazz and funk in New Orleans.
Henry and The Treme Funktet captured some of that live magic on their recently released album, “Live at Vaughan’s,” out now. — JOHN STANTON
Pasatono Orquesta
12:40-1:40 p.m., Cultural Exchange Pavilion
4:20-5:10 p.m., Lagniappe Stage
While researching the music of his family’s hometown in Mexico’s mountainous Mixtec region of Oaxaca in 1995, ethnomusicology student and musician Rubén Luengas Pérez was presented with his first bajo quinto, a wide-bodied acoustic guitar with 10 metal strings and a deep, rich sound. “That day completely changed my life,” Perez told NPR two decades later. It sparked his acclaimed career as a leading player, composer and revivalist of traditional Mixtec music and instruments.
Today, Pérez serves as musical director for the Pasatono Orquesta. The group owes much of its “chilenas swing” sound to the band’s study of traveling Mixtec orchestras in the 1920s that played a unique style marrying classical European and African music traditions with jazz and the traditional music of the indigenous Mixtec group. Pasatono’s innovative approach builds on those bands’ sounds while pushing the music of their ancestors forward in danceable form.
The band also plays at 12:15 p.m. Friday in the Cultural Exchange Pavilion and later will be interviewed at 2:15 p.m. by Betto Arcos on the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage. — JENNIFER ODELL
The Nayo Jones Experience
1:35-2:35 p.m., WWOZ Jazz Tent
You can’t get much of a better introduction to jazz than having your father be musician and music educator William “Doc” Jones. Born in Chicago, Nayo Jones grew up listening to standards, which she performs today, and playing the flute.
Now based in New Orleans, Jones is a longtime performer at the iconic Carousel Lounge and at the Royal Sonesta Hotel’s Jazz Playhouse, and she has toured with Kermit Ruffins and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. Last September, she released her EP “With Love Nayo Jones” featuring songs like Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain” and Nina Simone’s “Don’t Smoke in Bed,” as well as the up-tempo original “Ask Me Tenderly.” — KAYLEE POCHE
David Shaw
2:45-3:40 p.m., Gentilly Stage
Vocalist David Shaw played a Jazz Fest set with his band The Revivalists on the festival’s first Sunday, but this set will give him a chance to play his more stripped-back solo music. He told the publication Afterglow he’s leaning into “a different side of the artistry, a different side of my voice” with his solo material.
As it so often goes, Shaw had written some songs that he felt weren’t a good fit for The Revivalists, so he released his first solo album in 2021, followed by last October’s “Take a Look Inside.” That album covers a lot of personal ground, including from the highs of his relationship with his wife on “Guru” to the tough times on “When You Love Somebody.” It also includes an acoustic cover of The Revivalists’ breakout 2012 track “Soulfight,” a nod to where it all began. — KAYLEE POCHE
Nayo Jones of The Nayo Jones Experience
Peter Harris presents: Firm Roots
2:55-3:55 p.m., WWOZ Jazz Tent
New Orleans bassist and music educator Peter Harris has become a keystone of the city’s modern jazz scene, thanks to leadership of Firm Roots and other combos at the Bayou Bar, a post that earned him 2024’s New Orleans Jazz Hero Award from the Jazz Journalists Association. Harris launched the all-ages performance series at a time when New Orleans badly needed a venue where music students, masters and fans could convene for serious listening and real conversations about what they were hearing.
Firm Roots features Harris with Herlin Riley on drums, saxophonist Derek Douget and Dwight Fitch Jr. on piano. Expect deep grooves, thoughtful improvisation from this all-star ensemble and a chance to learn something new about New Orleans’ modern jazz composition masters like Ellis Marsalis, James Black and Harold Battiste. — JENNIFER ODELL
Banu Gibson feat. Bria Skonberg
3:05-4:05 p.m., Economy Hall Tent
Banu Gibson started performing in the 1960s as a teenager before moving in 1973 to New Orleans, where she has had a successful career as an entertainer and longtime bandleader of the New Orleans Hot Jazz Orchestra.
Her spunky, vivacious stage presence and talents as a singer, guitarist and banjoist have earned her a regular spot at Jazz Fest since the 1980s. Her sets often include swinging jazz numbers from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, and on Thursday, she will be joined by Canadian trumpeter and singer Bria Skonberg, who cites Louis Armstrong as one of her biggest influences. — SARAH RAVITS
George Wein Centennial feat. Randy Brecker
4:20-5:20 p.m., WWOZ Jazz Tent
After his successes with the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk Festivals, pioneering festival producer George Wein got a call in the early ’60s from New Orleans asking if he’d want to produce a jazz festival in the city. It took nearly 10 years — first because of Jim Crow segregation and then worries over continued discrimination against Black musicians — but in April 1970, Wein established the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (originally called the Louisiana Heritage Fair). He continued to be a steady presence at the festival until his death in 2021 at the age of 95.
Wein was a notable pianist and performed at the festival. He would have turned 100 later this year, so Grammy-winning trumpeter and flugelhornist Randy Brecker, who has played with Bruce Springsteen, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and others, will join a band of New Orleans musicians for a set honoring the Jazz Fest founder. — JAKE CLAPP
Alejandro Escovedo
4:30-5:35 p.m., Fais Do-Do Stage
Texas-born, Mexican American singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo comes from a famous musical family. His niece Sheila E. Escovedo is a first-wave punk scene veteran who played with San Francisco’s The Nuns in the late ’70s before he co-founded The True Believers with his brother Javier in a mix of punk grit with heartland rock and country.
Over time, Escovedo has woven Chicano rock, Mexican folk and indie textures into a sound that’s continuously experimental. His lyrics often explore identity and resilience, delivered in a voice that recalls Elvis Costello — sharp, expressive, and emotionally grounded.
Escovedo’s 2024 album “Echo Dancing” reimagines older songs with synths, drum machines, and ambient production, offering a fresh take on a deep and varied catalog. Escovedo also will be interviewed by Michael Tisserand at 1:15 p.m. Thursday on the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage. — LIAM PIERCE
IamaSound feat. PhaZe
5:10-5:55 p.m., Gospel Tent
Vacherie native Zack Landry, aka IamaSound, has been singing since he was 7 years old and started playing piano at 14. These days the millennial artist wears many hats as a performer, composer and actor, showing that gospel music can be for all generations and can expand into different genres of music and media.
Landry frequently posts behind-the-scenes clips of himself in the recording studio or just singing in the car, often accompanied by inspirational messages about the importance of faith. He’ll be joined by his backing group, PhaZe. — SARAH RAVITS
Santana
5:25-7 p.m., Festival Stage
Guitar legend Carlos Santana has lent his genre-defining sound to jazz, Latin music and psychedelic rock and beyond. Now, he’s expanding his message to using music to champion the universal importance of human connection and mutual care, a message that feels even more poignant given the festival’s focus on Mexico in these divisive times.
A Jazz Fest regular — he’s performed at the fest at least 12 times since 1989 — Santana’s had to delay some live shows due to health issues. But he’s back in action and fiery as ever, according to reviews. Recent sets have included a mix of hits like “Oye Como Va” and the anthemic “Black Magic Woman,” along with deeper-cut tunes he revisited or reworked on his latest album, “Sentient,” like his Smokey Robinson collaboration, “Let the Guitar Play, Please Don’t Take Your Love.” — JENNIFER ODELL
Cage the Elephant
5:35-7 p.m., Gentilly Stage
Indie rock band Cage the Elephant is known for bringing chaotic, kinetic live shows, fueled by frontman Matt Shultz, whose wild energy and sequined outfits wouldn’t be out of place on Mardi Gras Day.
Sonically, think: The White Stripes meets Arctic Monkeys with a dash of Dr. Dog — bluesy garage rock shot through with psych-pop swagger. But even though they bring a lot of flash to the stage, there’s a raw emotional core beneath all the glitter. Hits like “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked,” “Come a Little Closer,” and “Cigarette Daydreams” put Cage on the map. They are even slated to open for Oasis this summer (if Liam and Noel can get along). — LIAM PIERCE
Morris Day and The Time
5:40-7 p.m., Congo Square Stage
Morris Day and The Time not only helped define the 1980s, they also were instrumental in pushing pop music in new directions. A native of Minneapolis, Day grew up with Prince: They went to high school together and also had a band called Grand Central.
That close relationship would last throughout Day’s career. It’s impossible to miss the influences Prince had on the band and vice versa. The Time’s sound mashes up funk, rock, soul, synth-pop, ’80s pop and dance music and pretty much anything else that will get the crowd on their feet.
Between infighting among the band members and Prince’s estate trying to take control of the band’s name, it’s a rare treat to have Morris Day and The Time out playing, so you won’t want to miss this show. — JOHN STANTON
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