Jamil Sharif

Trumpeter · Vocalist — Born and raised in New Orleans

Jamil Sharif is a native New Orleans trumpeter and vocalist who has performed around the world and recorded with luminaries from Wynton Marsalis to Dr. John to Marcia Ball. A product of NOCCA and Southern University — and heir to a musical bloodline stretching back to the 1800s — Sharif moves from traditional jazz to the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and from the bandstand to the big screen, where he served as music coordinator and on-screen performer in the film Ray.

Never heard Jamil Sharif before?

🎺 Plays

Trumpet · Vocals

🎬 On Screen

“Ray” (2004) · Hard Target

📀 Essential

Portraits of New Orleans (1993)

“Each song on ‘Diversity’ represents a different genre of music that has influenced Jamil throughout his long career.” — Taylor Hackford, director of “Ray”

Why We Love Jamil Sharif

Jamil Sharif carries New Orleans jazz the way it was meant to be carried — in the blood. His father was trumpeter Emery Humphrey Thompson, his father’s first cousins were Preservation Hall mainstays Percy and Willie Humphrey, and his great-grandfather taught some of the music’s pioneers. But Sharif didn’t coast on lineage: he put in the work with George Jansen, Ellis Marsalis, Alvin Batiste, and Kidd Jordan, and came out a trumpeter who can swing a Dixieland parade, croon a ballad, and hold his own as a featured soloist with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. His records — from Portraits of New Orleans to Jamillennium to Diversity — are love letters to the whole sweep of the music, and his film work put the Crescent City’s sound on screens around the world. A complete New Orleans musician: player, singer, composer, educator, and ambassador.

Biography

Jazz Royalty, Working Musician

Jamil Sharif began playing music at 14, but he was born into it. His father was the late, world-renowned trumpeter Emery Humphrey Thompson — known as Umar Sharif — his father’s first cousins were Percy and Willie Humphrey, longtime mainstays of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and his great-grandfather was Professor J.B. (Jim) Humphrey, the music teacher who taught some of New Orleans’ pioneer jazz musicians in the early 1900s. Sharif’s musical heritage stretches back to the mid-1800s.

His formal training was just as distinguished. He studied first with George Jansen, the Loyola University trumpet teacher who also coached Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard, then at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) with Ellis Marsalis, and at Southern University with Alvin Batiste, Roger Dickerson, and Edward “Kidd” Jordan. That foundation made him a featured soloist with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, earned him a spot on Aaron Neville’s Christmas special and Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton, and took him around the world — from the Newport Rhythm and Blues Festival and the Chicago Jazz Festival to the Stockholm Jazz and Blues Festival and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra under Wynton Marsalis.

“Jazz has many personalities – it warms the heart, intrigues curiosity and ignites all senses. My new album depicts how jazz collaborates the souls of many, as I’ve always believed the art of embracing Diversity is the ability to capture universal harmony.”

— Jamil Sharif, on Diversity

Hollywood came calling early and often. Sharif appeared on screen in Hard Target with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Undercover Blues with Kathleen Turner and Dennis Quaid, and served as musical coordinator — and a supporting on-screen performer — for Taylor Hackford’s 2004 Ray Charles biopic Ray. His composition “Crescent City Strut” was used in the USA Network series The Big Easy, and his tune “Vee Vee” was featured in Nicolas Cage’s film Sonny. He has also served as musical director for the stage productions Salty Dog in Edinburgh and the Bourbon Street Revue in Laughlin, Nevada.

As president of his own Umdah Music, Sharif has released three acclaimed albums as a leader: Portraits of New Orleans (1993), featuring Dr. John and co-produced with Donald Harrison; Jamillennium (2000), straight-up Dixieland with Sharif leading the parade on trumpet, cornet, and vocals; and Diversity (2012), an all-originals mosaic of every style that shaped him, with guests including Ellis Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Herlin Riley, and Davell Crawford. Shine, featuring Japanese vocalist Midori Takamura, rounds out a catalog that proves one thing: there isn’t a corner of New Orleans music Jamil Sharif can’t play.