Critically-acclaimed New Orleans jazz musician Leroy Jones is coming to Manchester to play at the Royal College of Northern Music as part of his new UK tour.
Describing his music as ‘traditional jazz, with more of a 21st century flavour’, the 57-year-old is regarded as one of the finest trumpeters to come out of New Orleans, and will be returning to Manchester on November 11, having played all around the world.
Speaking to MM, Jones said that he was excited to return to a city that he had fond memories of, although he was proud to state that he ‘represents New Orleans jazz when he travel’.
“I’ve been to Manchester once before,” he said.
“I toured with Harry Connick Jr, and I was the opening act for Harry Corrick Jr in 1994, and we went through Manchester, in one of the big theatres.
“The city has wonderful architecture.
“I was quite impressed in general with things there – it was my first time coming to the UK actually.
“You’re turning out a lot of talent from that school [RCNM ], and to my understanding that’s the place you’re going to go if you want to enter music.”
Jones will be touring with renowned British singer-pianist Joe Stigloe and famous jazz singer Ian Shaw, with guest Lizzie Ball playing instead of Stigloe for the Manchester show.
He will also perform with his wife, Katja Toivola, who plays trombone.
The singer and trumpeter, born in New Orleans in 1958, became involved in music through school and has gone on to become a member of the News Orleans Jazz Hall of Fame.
In 1970, he met legendary jazz guitarist Danny Barker who recruited Jones to be part of his youth group, the Fairview Baptist Brass Band.
“New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, it was very difficult to escape it,” Jones said.
“Danny moved back to New Orleans with his wife Lou.
“They lived round the corner from my house, from my parent’s place, where I grew up, in the neighbourhood known as the 7th Ward.
“I began to learn how to improvise and play jazz through the brass band system and so I started from the roots.”
This, Jones says, makes his music truly authentic, tied to the culture and vibrant history of New Orleans.
Historical French, Spanish and Caribbean influences on the city give New Orleans a unique culture, and that diversity gave birth to the jazz scene in the 1910s.
Although modern jazz has various styles and subgenres, it all has its roots in that environment that Jones grew up in, and the authentic music he has played for more than three decades.
Jones said: “You have to remember that all of the modern idioms, the different types of styles that are prevalent – they are sourced from those beginnings, from traditional jazz.
“From the jazz that was played in New Orleans, in the jazz that travelled from New Orleans up to Mississippi to places like Memphis and Chicago and then spread.”
The city’s influence on his music naturally includes the Hurricane Katrina disaster, which happened 10 years ago.
Jones has written a strings piece, called Katrina, based on the tragedy.
He was living in the Gentilly district at the time, and was evacuated when the levies failed.
He and his wife managed to find some spare hotel rooms in Dallas, many of which were full with those who had already been evacuated.
They then stayed with ‘very kind’ friends who allowed the couple to stay in a spare room ‘for as long as we needed to be there’, returning to New Orleans six weeks after they were evacuated.
“There was nothing going on and we didn’t have any gigs,” he remembered.
“We were basically watching the news and the internet, trying to figure out if our house was underwater or not.
“It looked pretty much like a ghost town.”
Nearly 80% of the city was evacuated and even as people began to return, bringing things back to normal was not a quick process.
Many jazz clubs and music clubs had shut down, never to reopen.
Some of the musicians evacuated during the disaster chose not to return, having found cheaper insurance and other economic benefits in the cities they ended up in.
But many did, including Jones, and the city’s musical culture has recovered strongly.
“The music scene is quite vibrant,” he said.
“Most of the musicians on the local scene have returned and there are more brass bands playing traditional New Orleans music.
“A lot more of the young bands are playing what we know as contemporary brass band music in this day and age than there’s ever been in the city.”
As Jones prepares to tour the UK, he will depart from a city that has mostly recovered, despite some areas still displaying visible effects of the disaster.
Tourism, so vital to the New Orleans and Louisiana economy, and so popular due to the city’s attractions – its jazz culture, Mardi Gras, the bayou – has improved since the tragedy, or as Jones said, it has ‘gotten even better’.
“Often I’m asked ‘is there still jazz in New Orleans?” he said.
“And I say yes, of course there is, and not only the musicians from New Orleans.
“There are a lot of musicians from other parts of the United States, and other parts of the world, who have gravitated towards New Orleans, if not to migrate here, just to come through and stay for a while.
“So it’s alive and well.”
