Gregg Stafford’s Jazz Hounds

Led by Gregg Stafford (b. New Orleans, July 6, 1953) — leading the Jazz Hounds since 1994 and the Young Tuxedo Brass Band for 30+ years

Trumpeter and vocalist Gregg Stafford took over Danny Barker’s Jazz Hounds in 1994, having played in the band since the early 1980s. A lifelong keeper of New Orleans’ brass band tradition — leader of the Young Tuxedo Brass Band for more than thirty years, co-founder of the Black Men of Labor, and a Preservation Hall resident artist — he sings and swings the old-line repertoire with authority, warmth, and a wink.

Never heard the Jazz Hounds before?

🎺 Signature Sound

Trumpet-led traditional jazz, old-line style

🏛 Home Turf

Preservation Hall · second lines · Jazz Fest

🎓 Day Job

Public-school music educator for decades

In 1994 Stafford took over Danny Barker’s Jazz Hounds — a band he’d played in since the early 1980s — and he’s been keeping that torch lit ever since.

Why We Love Gregg Stafford’s Jazz Hounds

Some bands play traditional jazz; the Jazz Hounds are the tradition, handed down hand to hand. Gregg Stafford learned it the old way — in Danny Barker’s Fairview band as a teenager, on parade routes with the Olympia and the Young Tuxedo, in classrooms where he’s taught it back to New Orleans kids for decades. With the Hounds he keeps Barker’s songbook alive not as a history lesson but as a living, breathing good time: trumpet up front, vocals full of mischief, and a band that knows exactly how a Sunday afternoon is supposed to feel. When you hear the Jazz Hounds, you’re hearing the lineage — Bolden’s neighborhood, Barker’s classroom, Preservation Hall’s stage — all in one set.

Biography

The Keeper of the Flame

Born Gregory Vaughan Stafford on July 6, 1953, in New Orleans, Gregg Stafford grew up in the Central City neighborhood amid the city’s street parade culture — watching the second lines, singing in church, soaking it all in. He didn’t pick up an instrument until high school, when he joined the school band; his trumpet playing soon had him gigging with the E. Gibson Band, parading alongside childhood friend Tuba Fats Lacen.

As a teenager he joined Danny Barker’s Fairview Baptist Church Band, the youth brass band Barker founded in 1971 to pass the old-line tradition to a new generation. By sixteen Stafford was playing with the Olympia Brass Band, Teddy Riley’s Royal Brass Band, and the Young Tuxedo Brass Band. He earned his degree from Southern University in 1976, then worked in television production and as a public school math teacher — gigging at night and on weekends all the while.

“Stafford is beloved for his decades of work in jazz.”

— OffBeat

In 1984 Stafford took over leadership of the Young Tuxedo Brass Band, a post he has held for more than thirty years, and became a music educator in the New Orleans public schools in 1985. He led the Heritage Hall Jazz Band from 1992 following Kid Sheik Cola’s death — the band played Preservation Hall regularly through the 1990s, where Stafford remains a resident artist — and in 1994 he took over Danny Barker’s Jazz Hounds, in which he had played since the early 1980s. Along the way he has shared stages with Wynton Marsalis, Brian Carrick, and fellow tradition-keeper Dr. Michael White, and led bands at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for decades.

When mentor Barker died, Stafford co-founded the Black Men of Labor with Fred Johnson and Benny Jones, Sr. — a social aid and pleasure club dedicated to keeping traditional brass band music on the streets of New Orleans. Today you can catch Gregg Stafford & His Jazz Hounds at the New Orleans Jazz Museum’s livestream series, at Snug Harbor, and on Frenchmen Street — recent lineups have featured trombonist Frank Naundorf, banjoist Seva Venet, pianist Mari Watanabe, bassist Tyler Thomason, and drummer Benny Amon. The address changes; the mission doesn’t: keep the old-line sound swinging, and bring the room along with it.